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6 May 2022
Courier Weekly provides inspiration and tools to help you work better and live smarter.
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Brought to you this week by Flexi-Hex.
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Your weekly round-up of briefings, trends and news.
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The link isn't broken
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Forget the metaverse – these days the hottest online real estate is the social media bio. Over the past few years, a roster of ‘link in bio’ businesses – including Linktree, Linkfire, Linkpop, Koji and Beacons – have popped up to serve the growing creator economy, which is always on the lookout for easy ways to capture audiences used to chatting, searching, shopping and streaming through a single thumb tap.
These businesses take the humble URL and turn it into a simple but effective landing page for wherever people want to direct their followers and, increasingly, they're able to monetize that influence – this includes everything from a link to a song on Spotify to an account on subscription platform Patreon. Businesses typically make money by charging for data analytics and premium add-ons. It's a simple concept, but it's indicative of a bigger shift in the navigation and presentation of online spaces that goes beyond influencers – last year, Linktree's small-business market grew 327%.
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That said, it's a crowded space with low barriers to entry, which means that companies need to anticipate how to serve these changing audiences if they want to stay afloat. Already the consolidation has begun, with marketing platform Mavrck buying Later, the parent company of Linkin.bio. We caught up with Alex Zaccaria, CEO and co-founder of Linktree, which has just raised $110 million (at a $1.3 billion valuation), about what small businesses want from their digital spaces.
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Simplicity rules
From having a viral presence on TikTok to building virtual storefronts in the metaverse and launching non-fungible tokens (NFTs), small businesses can feel like they need to go big with their digital presence in order to succeed. However, Alex found that brands tend to use Linktree for the basics: contact details, opening hours and online retail integration (such as Shopify). While it's simple, he's found that they get more engagement this way than through a traditional website.
‘We want to reduce the cognitive load, which hyper-focuses [customers] on a particular action,’ he says. ‘There's nothing on Linktree that isn't an action, and that drives conversion for our users.’
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Analytics are everything
A website isn't just a navigation tool – it's a way to access information about who your customers are and how they interact with a space. However, small businesses may not have the budget for a marketing employee nor the knowledge to interpret a suite of analytics (nor the time to understand metrics in depth). Alex says that link-in-bio sites fill this gap as a key part of a small business' or creator's marketing stack – premium features on these sites will typically provide location data, click-through rates and other analytics, as well as easy-to-read dashboards and advice on turning that data into action.
‘We can make recommendations to users based on data to better improve their conversions, or what background color they should be using or apps they should be connecting to,’ he says.
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Ownership is key
For an individual creator or a small business, discovery is vital. But platform algorithms have made this a bigger challenge – websites can get buried in search results or be penalized if they don't meet often opaque standards set by social media sites. Going forward, Alex sees brands really owning their digital presence, moving away from trying to game the algorithms and instead focusing on finding a loyal audience and offering the easiest route to conversion.
‘The way creators use Linktree is a visual representation of who they are, and not a representation of what an algorithm thinks they want their audience to know,’ he says.
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Inspiration for the home, plus things to eat, drink and wear.
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Hair today, gone tomorrow
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The best shampoo bars to wash your tresses without plastic waste.
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Back in 1988, Lush was one of the first brands to make shampoo bars. Its classic Honey I Washed My Hair shampoo bar, made with fair-trade honey and bergamot oil, gently cleans your hair for up to 80 washes. |
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Californian beauty brand Odacité makes vegan-friendly and hypoallergenic products for skin and hair. Its 552M Argan and Coconut Soap-Free shampoo bar is suitable for all hair types and is named after the 552 million plastic shampoo bottles that end up in landfill each year. |
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London salon Bleach has branched out with its product range inspired by the pastel hues it's become famous for. You can find its signature pale-pink shade in a plastic-free Rosé shampoo bar. |
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Infused with cannabis-seed oil, the Manali Moisturising shampoo bar from Swiss beauty brand Abhati is equal to two bottles of traditional plastic-packaged shampoo. It's the brand's most nourishing shampoo bar in the range and is made with only natural whole plant ingredients. |
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BRAND PARTNER: Flexi-Hex
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Sustainable protective packaging
Flexi-Hex is on a mission to make sustainability more sustainable through an innovative packaging solution: the Flexi-Hex sleeve. Along with post-ready boxes for one to six bottles, customers will receive Instagram-worthy packaging that's representative of your brand values – and you can feel confident that bottles will arrive safely in one piece.
Find out more here
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Tips and tools to become better at life and work.
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The breakdown on: audio branding
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What is it?
The term ‘branding’ often conjures images of the visual – logos, photography, typography, packaging. But one element that's often overlooked is sound. Audio branding (AKA sonic branding or sound branding) refers to all the sounds and songs associated with a brand, product or service. Think of the little jingle at the start or end of a podcast or video; the sound a toy makes when it turns on; the background music used during video content; the voice used in customer tutorials. Even hold music if you have a customer-service hotline.
Given the fact that humans react to sound faster than visual stimuli – and how crowded the digital media space is – it's an area that deserves more attention. Done right, you'll be connecting with customers on a different level, conveying your brand's personality and eliciting specific emotions. Over time, you might even build in that highly sought-after brand recall. You could land upon the next Intel bong, TED drip, or Netflix ba-dum!
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Which businesses is it relevant for?
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Ones that use audio or video media in any capacity (eg, TikTok clips, podcasts, tutorials or YouTube videos). |
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Ones that make software or a physical device that incorporates sound and audio into its functionality (eg, a financial tech app, a tech product or home appliance). |
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Ones that use recorded video or audio to advertise. |
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How to stay ahead
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Just as your visual identity needs to be consistent and coherent wherever you pop up, so too does your audio branding. The same attention to detail should be applied wherever sound is used by your business. |
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A solid audio branding strategy won't be relying on unlicensed or generic sounds that are readily available everywhere. Ideally, the sounds you use need to be original and created by your business (or with the help of audio producers and freelancers). |
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When coming up with your own sounds, many of the same questions need to be asked that you would for creating the visuals. What's your USP? What are your values? Who are your customers? Branding agencies can often help in this regard – and when you work with one, audio branding should be part of the package. |
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EXAMPLE: Bip, a cardless credit app, built a multilayered soundscape into its product and is planning on introducing haptics to create a physical connection to sound as well.
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Other great stuff we loved this week.
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