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Keep Your “Work-From-Home” Flow on Track

Work From Home

Original post by Kelcey Morgan, Chief Product Officer with ThumbStopper®, located here.

Suddenly find yourself working from home? Cabin fever already setting in? Struggling with how to stay on track when you’re not motivated by peers and in-office routines?

Same. So, how can we all cope and help one another out?

Here’s my top recommendations for creating a remote work environment to keep yourself, your team, and your company focused and motivated during these uncertain times:

Create a Dedicated Workspace

Setting a laptop on your lap while binge-watching The Office may seem like a great way to spend a day “working” remote. However, I guarantee you don’t really get the “working” part done. Ensure you have a space in your home that reflects your normal office setting.

If you normally use a desk, sit at a desk. I personally need 2-3 screens to function, so I have brought monitors home for my new office space to keep my productivity consistent. If your office usually has light music playing in the background, add that to your home ambiance!

You probably don’t have The Office playing in the background, but as tempting as it may be, it’ll probably hinder your ability to separate work from play.

“Show Up” for Work Every Day

Stay consistent with your wake/sleep schedules, get your workout in as you would normally. Shower. Put pants on. The usual things you would do to go into the office and socialize with your peers. Get to your “office” at your regular time. More importantly, clock out as you normally would.

Two of the biggest challenges when working remote are “working” and “stopping work.” Figure out which category you fall into and make sure to pay attention daily that you don’t fall into bad habits.

Maintain Regularly Scheduled Meetings

My team just held our first remote Scrum. We have these regularly in the office three days a week at 9:30 a.m. This is not going to change during our remote time.

We know that this constant team check-in to our development processes and active sprints are vital to keeping us on our company roadmap. Did we have to adjust and use Slack team calls instead of in person? Yes. Are there plenty of tools available to do the same thing for your company? Also yes. (i.e. Zoom or GoToMeeting). Start a shared document for meeting minutes and designate an appointed recorder if you don’t already have this process in place.

This same rule applies to client meetings. Our account management team has monthly regularly scheduled calls with our clients, already set up with GoToMeeting. There is no reason for these to be cancelled/changed, and we encourage additional check-ins to touch base and show empathy to their company adjustments during this time.

Evaluate Existing Processes – Improve Where Needed

A major benefit of working remote is that the likelihood of someone stepping into your office and distracting you with a side task is greatly reduced – unless you’re one of the lucky ones like me home with your kids for an undetermined amount of time!

If you find you have some down-time, use it to evaluate existing processes and communications. Our team recently cleaned up our entire project management software, making things easier to read from home that we wouldn’t have the opportunity to clarify face-to-face. We have also started making better mock-ups instead of drawing on shared white boards to gather around.

The opportunities for improved change now can help instill habits that’ll improve workplace productivity when back in the office.

Hold Your Teammates Accountable

Your office is still your team. We are all still striving for company success. If you normally would address “bad” culture or attitudes privately with your colleague, keep doing so! If you notice someone’s hours of work change, their productivity and attendance to “meetings” starts to decrease – reach out directly with your preferred messaging app.

Remember, this is a challenging time; Some people may need a reminder they aren’t alone and that their presence is important. Hold each other accountable, but couple that with holding each other up.

Everything we learn through these next few weeks about our out-of-office cultures will only strengthen our in-office cultures when we resume normality. Stay safe – stay focused – stay connected.

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ThumbStopper 2019 Year in Review

ThumbStopper 2019 Year in Review

Capping off 2019 with some highlights over the past year

2019 has been a busy year for the ThumbStopper family!

Over the past year, we’ve spent each day building upon our technologies to be better partners for our customers. By expanding our staff, incorporating new features into our brand manager and much more, we’ve evolved into a full-service digital marketing solution for brands and retailers.

As we enter the new year, we want to give a special thanks to all of the partners who have been with us along the way. To cap off 2019, here are five highlights from our eventful year:

Brands. Retailers. Connected

We’ve made sure that connecting to ThumbStopper is seamless for brands and retailers. This year, we added over 3,000 retailers across 20 new brands in the Automotive, Watercraft, Firearm, Farm & Garden and Retail verticals.

Afternoons are for Your Content

Over 455,000 pieces of content were published by our partners in 2019 using ThumbStopper’s Brand ManagerTM ! Among those numbers, we found that 94% of the content pushed out was published during the afternoon. 

Adoption Rates are Skyrocketing

We go above and beyond to ensure brands are fully on-board our platform within 30 to 45 days – from contract signing to content deployment. From there, we work with our partners to ensure a brand’s retail network maximizes its adoption rate on our platform.

This year, our staff successfully maintained an 84.6% on-board rate across all our brands within the first 90 days!

Engagement is at an All-Time High

A record 896,436 unique social media users engaged with content deployed through ThumbStopper’s Brand Manager, seeing the highest engagement in Automotive and Watercraft brands!

ThumbStopper For Bikes is Picking Up Speed

We recently launched our “ThumbStopper for Bikes” solution, a new program delivering custom-curated content to bicycle retailers’ social feeds. Since launching our program in September, we’ve on-boarded 13 retailers in the bicycle vertical and plan on switching into high gear next year!

We want to wish all of our brand and retail partners a Happy New Year as we enter 2020 and look towards building upon our success in connecting brands with our retail networks!

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The Vertical Recipe

Vertical Animation

No vertical is too steep a climb for ThumbStopper to amplify your social thumbprint

Understanding an industry is a challenging process. Some industry verticals provide goods and services that would be considered “necessity” goods and services (commodities), while other verticals provide products that would be considered “lifestyle” goods and services. Every niche vertical has its own nuances, and oftentimes we find the culture of the brands in these verticals affect both the development and marketing of those goods and services. Each brand within a vertical is unique unto itself – as are the consumers those brands serve.

ThumbStopper’s® success in connecting brands to their retailers’ digital and social media channels is a “wide net” approach that is influenced by a number of factors including the number of competitive brands, the number of dispensing retailers, consumer market size, consumer market demand, total revenues, average margins, and several other factors which makes up ThumbStopper’s “Vertical Recipe” foundation.

Today, ThumbStopper services over 22,000 retailers in a number of verticals including Auto, Powersports, Marine, Bicycle, Sporting goods, Furniture, Jewelry/Watches, Firearm, and Farm & Garden to name a few. The aggregation and parsing of data from these verticals has established principals that guide our algorithms (our proprietary artificial intelligence), enabling us to confidently assert best practices.

Our software is scalable and based on the premise of being vertically agnostic: through the use of this data aggregated by unique vertical, ThumbStopper enables the retailers that bring that brand to market to most effectively utilize the brand’s digital content and advertising assets. Through automation, segmentation, and our AI, these brand assets are optimally exposed to potential consumers, all done with virtually no effort on the part of the local retailer.

ThumbStopper’s brand playbook enables a brand to deploy content and advertising assets to up to 90% of its retailer network if deployed and endorsed properly within the first 120 days of implementing.

Know Your Vertical

Social media has disrupted traditional advertising models, much like websites did in the early 2000s.

When a consumer Googles a brand, their search will likely bring up both the business’ website and their social media pages.

Sometimes we hear from a brand “we already have a social media presence or a company or agency that handles this for us,” usually they mean just that – they have a corporate presence a little to no influence on how and when their brand is represented socially and digitally at the local level.

Take, for example, the bicycle industry: this is a unique vertical with thousands of passionate retailers who have limited access to the content streams of the brands they sell. Very few retailers have the resources to handle managing a consistent, engaging, high quality social media presence. Through our technology, bicycle shop owners now have a regular, automated flow of brand content fed directly to their Facebook page. These retailers still maintain complete control of modifications, engagements, and reactions their customers may have to or about the product and lifestyle related content posted on their behalf. It’s a win-win for both the retailer and the brand.

With Knowledge Comes Power

By establishing a foundation to amplify their social presence, brands are able to leverage our platform’s data and A.I. to create a brand-to-retailer connection that has not been possible before. Because our platform is “vertically agnostic,” all brands across a vertical are proportionally represented in the most optimal manner on their retailer’s Facebook page.

At the end of the day, ThumbStopper is a utility just like Facebook, Amazon, Google and the Internet itself – we are the conduit connecting brands and retailers. We believe that our vertical recipe lays the foundation for more verticals to leverage the power of social media to amplify their message.

To learn more, please visit www.ThumbStopper.com

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Growing Your Social Reach Through Co-Operation

Growing Your Social Reach Through Co-Operation

How to achieve outstanding ROI in your digital marketing campaigns through co-op advertising

The relationship between manufacturers and retailers is a special one – a symbiotic one in which both parties can benefit each other with the right advertising techniques.

The key? Co-operation.

When we onboard brands to our platform, we recommend they get behind our program by paying a percentage of the cost through cooperative advertising. Co-op advertising is a cost-effective approach for manufacturers and retailers to share cost to better reach their target markets.

Through these co-op funded programs, we’ve added over 10,000 retailers representing brands across multiple verticals. But for newcomers to the concept, here’s what you need to know:

Co-op Advertising for Beginners

Co-op advertising is a joint advertising effort established between a manufacturer and a retailer. Its purpose is to save both parties’ money by sharing costs of advertising at the local level.

Co-op ads depend on a partnership between the manufacturer and the retailer. In such a partnership, manufacturers give retailers funds based on the number of products they sell. Retailers benefit from greater brand exposure without the increased ad spend while manufacturer benefit with increased business at a lower cost.

As a manufacturer, it’s up to you how high a percentage to subsidize a retailer’s advertising budget. We recommend a 50/50 split for manufacturers who use co-op funds with our platform, though some may cover 75% or even pay 100% of the advertising cost. Manufacturers can decide on how much to pay based on the previous year’s purchases, a retailer’s current orders, or the like. You are in control of the amount you offer.

As a retailer, you would be remiss not to take advantage of co-op advertising. With free money sponsored by the manufacturer, you can receive a reimbursement of your marketing costs each time you run an advertisement or marketing campaign that features the manufacturer’s wares. With some manufacturers willing to pay 100% of your advertising costs, local advertisers can benefit from the co-op agreement.

Using Co-Op Advertising for Social Media Growth

The co-op theory is simple: The more you spend on advertising, the more exposure your brand receives. Spending money on advertising through a co-op system results in stronger marketing efforts, more branded content across digital channels and more buzz surrounding your products. Using co-op funds on social media advertising is one of the best ways to maximize results.

In a February 2019 Adweek article, Andreas Reiffen outlined the benefits of shifting co-op advertising funds to digital channels – only 20 percent of nearly $70 billion invested in co-op marketing is being used on the digital front ($14 billion). With roughly 75 percent of ad-induced sales coming from paid search and product listing ad (PLA) campaigns, digital co-op marketing is a relatively untapped well that retailers and manufacturers can benefit from.

If your manufacturer offers these funds, make use of them to grow your social media advertising budget and make a greater impact on your audience. Failing to take advantage of co-op ad money is a costly mistake that could result in manufacturers slashing their budgets.

Expanding Your Social Presence

Engaging in a co-op program is an advantageous opportunity that can lower advertising costs and achieve outstanding ROI in your digital marketing campaigns. It’s both easy and practical too:

  • Get the guidelines. Ask your manufacturer for an in-depth description of advertising requirements for your co-op program. Manufacturers will generally require you to be consistent with their branding.

  • Take to social media. Take advantage of digital advertising with co-op funds. Social marketing is an incredible tool for engaging with your audience – 72% of the U.S. is on at least one social platform as of 2019!

  • Work with an advertising professional. Get advice from a professional marketer in creating social ads your consumers will love. Getting help from digital advertising experts can help you make the most of your co-op program.

As a retailer and manufacturer, you should be taking advantage of co-op advertising programs. Put the money toward social and digital media advertising to expand your reach, increase customer engagement and boost website traffic.

Learn more about how brands use co-op programs for social growth through the ThumbStopper platform by clicking here.

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It Pays to Play Well With Others

Tesla Matt Brown

Tesla, Musk and a crazy idea

I recently had the pleasure of featuring Asoka Veeravagu, CEO of Revolve Technologies on the BROWN on BRAND podcast. We talked about Drive Revolve, his premium automobile subscription service. During our conversation, the subject of Tesla became a point of discussion.

I’ve always admired Elon Musk and have come to love Tesla for the way it’s revolutionizing the automotive industry with its pioneering development of electric cars. I don’t think anyone can challenge what Tesla has been able to overcome in achieving its goal of sustainable transportation.

Musk has the proof to back up his company’s success, having sold 67,650 of its Model 3s in the U.S. this year through June – over seven times the sales generated by the next best-selling electric vehicle, Tesla’s own Model X.

But Tesla does have its challenges: the company has a track record of high executive turnover; the operating system is notoriously buggy and not very user friendly and its vehicles are sometimes criticized for being uncomfortable.

Aside from that, Tesla is doing for the retail automotive buying experience what Apple did with The Apple Store. And they are innovating in a space flanked by competitors who have dominated the auto industry for over 100 years.

As competitors like Ford invest in electric-truck start up, Rivian, and Nissan announces an electric pickup truck of its own, I believe that Tesla can set itself apart from its competitors by also positioning itself as an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) for its pioneering lithium-ion batteries and electric powertrains.

It Pays to Play Well With Others

Be the Pipeline

It’s a crazy idea, but it wouldn’t be the most outlandish either.

Ryobi, for example, disrupted a stagnant power tools market by developing a cordless battery to power their entire lineup of power tools. The move set the company apart from its competition by cutting the cords that traditionally made the storage and handling of power tools cumbersome.

It Pays to Play Well With Others

GitHub is a good example of an open platform that became a thriving ecosystem for software developers to collaborate and share their projects. The company has over 37 million users, 100 million software repositories and was recently acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion.

Speaking of Microsoft, let’s not forget that the company’s operating system is installed on 78 percent of the PCs in use around the world. They lease their software to hardware computer manufacturers, who incidentally use processor chips powered by Intel.

It Pays to Play Well With Others

And of course, my company, ThatsUs.com, leverages open-source technology. The software products we develop, like ThumbStopper, enable brands to connect their digital content to their local retailers’ social media feeds.

Collaborate, Don’t Consolidate

The businesses that I’ve built and the technologies that my team has created have always been built with the goal of reducing or eliminating menial human labor. Tesla could expand its reach and influence in its own space and other verticals by embracing collaboration and interoperability.

History has shown time and again, from the Browser wars of the early 2000s, to the streaming wars being waged today, that when intellectual property gets consolidated into silos by monopolies, innovation is stifled, and consumers get the short end of the stick.

Tesla batteries and powertrains could become the de facto standard for electric OEMs. The shift would be another example of Elon Musk’s ability to innovate and achieve a future of sustainable transportation.

Besides, how cool would it be to add a Tesla-powered battery and powertrain in a 67′ Chevelle?

P.S. Tesla’s recent earnings report showed the company lost 13 percent of its shares in the second quarter of 2019.

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Social Media Can Boost Your SEO

So I just watched a video from my main man Marcus Sheridan, the Sales Lion. If you guys aren’t following him, make sure you do. Marcus was talking about SEO, and websites – stuff that we don’t necessarily do here at ThumbStopper®. But what really caught my attention was the way that he voiced the importance of content in today’s SEO (search engine optimization). And that lots of content, relevant content, is what’s really driving your search engine optimization.

So, I found it to be kind of a bonus – an added bonus – to what we talk about here at ThumbStopper®, which is:

It’s going to help you amplify your brand. It’s going to help you with your SEO, per Marcus. And it’s going to help you tell your story the way you want your story to be told. So, if you’re at a brand and you’ve got independent retailers or dealers that are responsible for selling and moving and telling your story, get with the program.

Get with social. Make lots of content, and use something like ThumbStopper®’s brand manager to help you distribute that great content out through your dealers’ social media pages, automagically, hands-free, and reach all of those end consumers. One of the nice by products will be: your SEO will go up as well. Have a great day. Let’s do it together in 2019!