MarTech Interview with Damien Mahoney, Co-founder and CEO at Stackla

To construct genuine shopping for experiences, it’s now time for entrepreneurs to capitalize on consumer generated opinions and consumer generated content material to drive deeper buyer journeys, Damien Mahoney, Co-founder and CEO at Stackla feedback on among the high content material advertising tips wanted in immediately’s B2B market:
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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat Damien, we’d love to listen to about your journey by means of the years…what impressed the story behind Stackla and since its inception, how has the platform advanced?
My co-founder and I have been journalists and producers by commerce, and honed our craft on digital platforms. A decade in the past we noticed the arrival and dramatic rise of social media, mixed with the proliferation of smartphones, and alas an ideal storm was created. The energy of content material creation was within the palms of billions of individuals (smartphones), and they’d the social platforms to share their tales and amplify their voices. Then, manufacturers have been compelled to change into publishers and content material creators, and many struggled to maintain up with the calls for of manufacturing high quality content material each day. So slightly than create content material, we had the thought to faucet into the wealth of content material being produced by customers to feed the hungry content material beast. And so Stackla was born.
While our price proposition and expertise has advanced dramatically to energy a spread of various use instances, the elemental advantages we ship to our buyer has not. Content stays king within the digital age, and continues to be the important thing ingredient to garnering shopper consideration and driving intent. Adding AI to our product ensures we will add scale and relevance to probably the most trusted and genuine supply of content material: content material created by customers.
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How are you seeing content material advertising traits evolve in immediately’s B2C and B2B market across the globe?
We’re seeing manufacturers mature of their grasp of information insights, which supplies them the means to create extra focused methods for particular purchaser segments and personas. However, as campaigns change into extra focused and the variety of on-line touchpoints proceed to proliferate, it’s more and more tough for manufacturers to supply sufficient content material to help their advertising actions. 
To maintain tempo with digital content material with out breaking the financial institution, immediately’s manufacturers have began to look past conventional content material creation strategies—like skilled photoshoots and inventory pictures—and as a substitute faucet into all of the natural customer-created content material that includes manufacturers throughout social platforms. 
As extra and extra manufacturers put a lot of these trusted visuals at the center of their advertising, the following huge development will see manufacturers starting to domesticate their very own creator communities the place they actively work with clients to make the content material wanted for advertising campaigns.  
Can you discuss among the most high-end/high-impact visible content material experiences you’ve seen main manufacturers construct in latest instances?
There is a fairly big selection of high-end visible experiences that manufacturers have produced over time. Brands like Apple and Nike are well-known for the impression of their content material experiences. I assumed Nike’s latest ‘You Can’t Stop Us’ advert was notably spectacular. 
We’ve seen Ikea spend money on augmented actuality (AR) app expertise to assist individuals just about take a look at how its merchandise would look of their properties.
In phrases of branded bodily experiences, Heineken just about set the bar after they constructed their Heineken Experience interactive tasting room for individuals to tour and take pictures at—making it fully immersive for his or her followers.
How can manufacturers immediately create a extra significant buying expertise and interplay with their clients, utilizing totally different content material advertising strategies?
Stackla just lately carried out a worldwide shopper survey which discovered that 72% of individuals say actual buyer pictures and movies are the content material they most need to see on eCommerce websites when making buying choices.
People search unvarnished and genuine photos from fellow clients. User-generated content material (UGC) exhibits what a product seems like in actual life and thus is extra related and reliable to the common shopper.
The knowledge additionally discovered that immediately’s buyers count on manufacturers to supply them with extra personalised experiences. Brands that may successfully ship extra genuine and tailor-made experiences is not going to solely give individuals what they need, however will even create extra significant connections with web shoppers.
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Can you throw mild on among the most impactful methods eCommerce distributors can use visible content material advertising to construct higher experiences – what suggestions/finest practices ought to they be following?
Visuals might be very efficient at grabbing shopper’s consideration and showcasing product options, however they need to additionally assist to convey merchandise to life for web shoppers who can’t bodily see, contact, or attempt them for themselves. 
Offering a mixture of third-party social proof with skilled product photos in addition to a wide range of pictures and movies may help break down on-line limitations to buy.
It’s additionally essential to repeatedly enhance your buyer journeys. A good way to shorten paths to buy and doubtlessly drive extra product discovery is to make the partaking visuals in your eCommerce web site actionable. Adding click-to-buy buttons to pictures, you possibly can extra shortly take individuals from the purpose of inspiration to level of buy.
We’d love to listen to about among the methods during which platforms like Stackla have enabled higher content material advertising experiences for manufacturers?
Because Stackla is actually an omnichannel platform, we assist the manufacturers we work with develop their user-generated content material methods past simply social media to any and each buyer touchpoint they need to create significant experiences for. 
Lush Cosmetics, for instance, needed to ship genuine content material and personalization at scale. They do that by utilizing our platform to gather, rights handle, and publish content material from their passionate neighborhood of shoppers again out onto their owned advertising channels. Doing this not solely helped the model develop nearer ties with their loyal advocates, however it created a extra private expertise for different buyers who have been impressed by seeing individuals identical to them utilizing the merchandise. 
We’ve even helped them make these inspirational photos shoppable by enabling them so as to add ‘Shop Now’ buttons to UGC—successfully connecting content material to commerce.
As content material advertising traits evolve, what are among the high suggestions you’d depart entrepreneurs and enterprise house owners with? 
I feel manufacturers want to recollect to attempt to lead with their clients and not simply their merchandise. User-generated content material opens doorways for manufacturers, offering content material at the size and velocity wanted for immediately’s busy advertising panorama.
There are myriad methods to make buyer content material an integral a part of any advertising technique. Invite clients to showcase merchandise they buy from you and reward them after they promote your model. Provide simple methods for them to get entangled, like importing content material on to your website or posting a photograph with a branded hashtag to be featured throughout your advertising supplies. Run a web based contest the place winners are chosen by different followers and clients. You may even attempt curating TikTookay and Instagram movies from clients to create a enjoyable and partaking video advert in your model. 
This is essential: no matter technique you select, simply keep in mind to get permission from content material creators earlier than utilizing their content material to advertise your model.
Some final ideas and takeaways for startup CEOs and CMOs to bear in mind?
Remain optimistic, however apply self-discipline and maintain it actual. Build an organization you might be pleased with, however most of all consider the legacy you need to depart behind and how your staff, supporters and clients will understand you when it’s all stated and executed. They don’t want to like you, however hopefully they’ll respect you and you’ll have by some means made a optimistic contribution to their private journey. That is among the generally neglected privileges and tasks of being the chief of a company, start-up or in any other case.
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