December, 30th, 2018
By Anna Chertkova

With 15 year of experience in the industry, 77Agency now defines itself as an agency of contemporary marketing. An international group of over 150 people of different nationalities with offices around the world (London, Milan, Riga, Rome and Los Angeles), 77 now works with over 100 brands and offers 360-degree digital solutions globally across a variety of industries: hotels & resorts, education, luxury, banking, retail, etc.

Here’s an outline of the last interview of 2018 with the General Manager of the Agency, Mr. Amedeo Guffanti, where he shares his look at the year in review and a sneak peek on what’s to come in the year ahead.

What: contemporary marketing
The concept of digital marketing is now completely anachronistic. First in the UK, but now also in Italy, there has been a switch in marketing strategies determined by the evolution of consumer habits that levelled down the effective distinction between the offline and online. Now effective communication is deployed across multiple channels. Hence the term “contemporary”: a new approach constantly aimed at the continuous evolution of digital technology in the broader area of corporate marketing.

Why: to create a successful customer-focused marketing strategy
Digital is not an alternative to traditional offline communication, but an aggregator platform where different channels converge for increasingly targeted strategies and customized content offers. The effectiveness of digital campaigns is no longer based solely on big data, but operates focusing on people’s tastes and behaviors.

Where: Omni channel
Our challenge today is mastering Omni Channel communication which is all about defining strategies that comprise digital advertising tools designed to increase sales (over 80% of which are still concentrated in physical points of sale) in retail stores. GotU, the platform that we have developed, is the result of the natural evolution of 77Agency. GotU is able to propose a personalized advertising plan, targeted and aimed at bringing users to the point of sale, using the behavioral look alike algorithms of Facebook.

When: right here, right now
The main challenge of contemporary marketing is to grasp the use of the digital to increase sales in physical stores.

Who: Amazon, LinkedIn & Bing.com to revolutionize retail?
According to Amedeo, there are two main tendencies that are in stall for digital marketers in 2019.
The first trend is the advancement of Amazon: 25 years of history, a wealth of data and experience gained in various fields such as – and above all – logistics, have made Amazon reach new records in terms of capitalization and have to date, the world’s leading equity company. The giant e-commerce is now the biggest competitor of Google and Facebook, and is destined to become the first search engine for online purchases and to play an important role in the micro-payments market.

The second phenomenon we will soon see is, on the one hand, the continuous growth of Microsoft, driven by LinkedIn, a social network that has become a reference point for professional communities, and, on the other hand, the constant increase in the market share of Bong.com, the search engine which has already achieved significant market shares in the United States and for which we expect excellent results on a global scale in the future.

By Anna Chertkova
December, 6th, 2018

Excerpts of an original Forbes article by Michael Tasner initially published here.

“Every year, new technologies come out, existing technologies get smarter and prospects get savvier and more bombarded with marketing.
This will continue to happen every year at a faster pace. That said, the goal of marketing — and digital marketing, in particular — has always been the same: getting and keeping your audience’s attention. The only changes that will continue occurring are where the attention goes, and that’s what you need to be leveraging.

Without further ado, here are five digital marketing trends for 2019:

1. Artificial Intelligence
Everyone talks about artificial intelligence (AI) but few understand it. Think of AI as a bunch of computers that can analyze things rapidly. They are able to better understand behaviors and patterns by going through data.
You can use AI for tasks like scouring your databases and providing insights to your team. For example, you could leverage AI to find prospects who look like your existing customers or scan social media conversations to provide you with real-time intel on your competitors…

2. Chatbots
… Chatbots can help with customer service tasks and tie into your various systems to answer repetitive customer questions like: “When will my package be delivered?” “What time is my appointment?” “Where are you located?” …
…One thing to keep in mind is that chatbots are not meant to replace complex human conversations. They can help, but they are still evolving and improving.

3. Smart Speakers And Audio
… To capitalize on this trend, I suggest optimizing your website for voice search. To do this, you must understand what your prospects are searching for. Keep in mind that audio queries are conversational and longer…
… The second step is to incorporate those questions and phrases throughout your website. Build a FAQ section and answer all of those questions you discovered. You could also write blog posts on the various topics and questions, but the best way is to naturally incorporate the particular phrases…

4. Local Influencer Marketing
… While influencer marketing is not a new topic, the focus on local influencers is. Unless you run a massive global brand or an e-commerce business, chances are your marketing is mostly local.
While it’s “cool” for an influencer or celebrity to endorse your product or service to their millions of social fans, it can be short-lived. Try partnering with local influencers and put together long-term campaigns and promotions.
Make a list of the top influencers in your market. Check out podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and other platforms. Follow them first, and learn about them and their brand. Then, reach out with a casual message and start a conversation.

5. Live Video
Video is still at the top of content marketing. The only thing better is live video. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What would you want to experience from your company? Think behind-the-scenes tours of your office, product demos/releases, live Q&As, etc.
There are two key action steps to move the needle with live video. First, it’s important to create a robust content strategy…
… Keep in mind that video should be your starting point, but these assets can be leveraged across multiple platforms and turned into other forms of content (audio, blogs, white papers, infographics, social media, etc.).
Step two is to pick the platform you want to focus on — Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Instagram Live, Periscope, or even Livestream.com…
… The three best ways to stand out from a crowd are to build your brand, tell a great story and provide helpful, authentic content. Do those three things consistently and leverage the latest trends and it’s game over (in a good way) for you and your business.”

September, 19th, 2018
By Anna Chertkova

77Agency, which has been the resort’s partner for all digital communication and marketing activities since 2014, has completely redesigned the design and structure of Forte Village site and … obtained professional recognition for the second time. Content management, video, mobile first approach, personalized customer experience for the new online platform brought 77Agency the 2018 WebAward in the Outstanding Website category.
It is already the second award for a complete site overhaul for the tandem 77Agency & Forte Village. The first WebAward for Outstanding Achievement in Web Development arrived in 2014 with the initial redesign of the site.

How website redesign and tailored customer experience led to conversion optimization is explained by Amedeo Guffanti, Partner & General Manager of 77:

“This a process that will evolve over time and will offer an increasingly customer-centric experience owing to the activation of marketing automation technologies applied with the view of generating greater adherence of content offer compared to users- information request. The first results demonstrated the efficacy of our strategy: site sessions increased +48% if compared to the period prior to the release of the new site. Volume of traffic from countries of crucial importance for the sector grew considerably: the UK and Italy, in particular, have recorded significant growth spikes. These numbers allow us to affirm that Site Development, a coherent Structure that brings forward the content and an accurate job of SEO have significantly raised the page rank and attracted a new target audience totally in line with Forte Village clientele”.

Below, in a nutshell, 4 steps of conversion-centered website review we @77 did for Forte Village:

– Restyling
The style if the site is inspired by that of a web magazine. Particular attention is paid to the layout and content management, storytelling is enhanced through video and interactive map.

– Mobile first approach
More intuitive mobile first approach led to a significant increase in mobile sessions and new users.

– Personalized customer experience
A new modular structure gave greater flexibility to the presentation of content and enabled us to differentiate storytelling based on the characteristics of individual markets. Those will be the key to building a better, highly personalized, customer experience for the future.

– New Sections
Two New Sections “Activity Calendar” with all the proposals of the resort and the section “Sardinia” dedicated to the region turn the site into a useful tool for its guests who are already enjoying themselves here.

August, 28^th, 2018

By Anna Chertkova

Retail is no longer about products, it is more about customers now: “The pattern of communication has changed, but not the job of communicators”, says Amedeo Guffanti, general manager and shareholder of 77Agency, in his interview to Business Insider Italia.

Below are the 5W1H of his view.

When: within the next years
At the beginning we used digital to power consumption online, now we are using it to reverse the slump at physical points of sale. The challenge of the next few years will be to increase the number of stores AND to transform shops from places where goods are displayed to a reality where clients are offered personalized service. This way digital will stop being only an intermediate, and will bring an added value for a better customer experience.

What: utmost precision
We @77Agency have developed GotU, a platform that exploits behavioral look-a-like patterns of Facebook in customized and highly targeted campaigns around each point of sale. GotU allows us to reach potentially interested users in the vicinity of stores with customized promotions and campaigns.

Why: study more and perform better
It is essential to know where the user connects and, above all, the local specifics of the area in which he is located in order to communicate with him correctly. For example, in a city like Treviso a choice of shops is comparatively limited, while in Milan we need to take into consideration both longer traveling time and a much wider choice of shops, compared to smaller towns.

On the other hand, mobility has radically changed the experience of media consumption. Internet has gradually surpassed television: Google reaches 94% of the Western population and Facebook with its applications (Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger) counts over two billion users. Amazon is also advancing: the e-commerce giant has been investing a lot in advertising lately.

Where: within a 2km radius… online!
With GotU – awarded by Facebook as the best innovation in 2016 – we @77 have already created 85 thousand local campaigns within a radius of two kilometers. Digital has moved online the sale of some products, while all other still remain on sale in physical stores.

How: profiling & consistency
It is true that a buyer’s location does not have any importance for online purchases, while the same location becomes essential if we aim at bringing customers into a shop: with respect to all privacy rules, we still can map the entire planet and understand how many people live near a certain point. We get to know the socio-demographic profile and interests of these people. We also discovered that if we reach them between six and ten times a month with a customized message, we can make them do a step from online to offline, and get them to visit the shop we targeted.

Who: forward-thinking retailers
Our experience with GotU demonstrated that every Euro invested by our customers has generated seven Euros of sales. Among our customers and testimonials there are both big brands, from Fratelli Rossetti to Burger King, and smaller companies that want to communicate with their customers so as not to be overwhelmed by the online world.

July, 25^th, 2018

By Anna Chertkova

Amedeo Guffanti, Partner & General Manager of 77Agency, explains in his interview to DailyNet his vision for the future of online advertising.

Traditionally, we offer the Five Ws of his view.

WHAT: Connected Digital Thinking

Over the last 15 years Internet has become the first media as well as an integral part of advertising planning, both in Italy and worldwide. The point is, unlike print media or TV, Internet is a distribution platform where several channels converge thus making targeted communication and delivery of specific content to one’s target audience easy and efficient.
77Agency exploits this very aspect which we define precisely as “Connected digital thinking”: Internet for us is not solely a sales channel, but a means of offering services that add value to the whole of customer experience.

WHO: Amazon vs. retailers

The convergence between a digital and a physical point is of crucial importance today, the challenge being played on building interconnections between online & offline. In fact, Amazon is also focusing on the purchase of physical spaces and if the world’s largest online marketplace is moving towards such a coexistence, it is easy to understand that modern marketing strategies should follow the same direction.
77Agency succeeded in making offline business profit from efficient online advertising with the creation of GotU, a tool that sets up location-optimized digital campaigns to drive real foot traffic to your stores. In over 2 years we have created over 85,000 local campaigns in 15 countries (of which about 25,000 in Italy).

WHERE: Facebook and Google My Business

In fact, the two main channels to bring the best results in targeting of POS is Facebook, with excellent geolocation and enhancement services even with offline integration, and Google with its new technology My Business. Both can be installed on most mobile devices and allow you to follow the user on the move, coordinate data from the CRM, and keep track of the users that actually arrive to the selected store. At 77 with our campaigns we have registered up to 700% return on investment.

WHEN: the future is now

Lately we have been working on revising new services, especially in terms of digitization of retail chains and offline tracking as well as on integration with other platforms, such as Amazon and Waze. It is still challenging to keep track of POS visits, as technology is still inadequate and only able to provide approximate results. Yet, we are already running tests to improve results always in respect of data protection & privacy policy regulations.

WHY: data origin & collection

In Amedeo’s opinion, the Italian market will continue to shift Display & Data to systematic and real time bidding, resulting in an increase in demand for professional consulting services where data origin is involved. To remedy it it’s essential to choose partners in a way to separate technology suppliers from data vendors, concentrating merely on execution and efficient fine-tuning of campaigns.

June, 21st, 2018
By Anna Chertkova

Digital Convergence Day, the first major European conference of the kind held on June, 20th, 2018 in the Milanese Luigi Bocconi University, hosted the world’s leading national and digital marketing and innovation experts from major companies in the industry. The event explained how social, mobile, big data and artificial intelligence that define the digital world of today, could be integrated into retail marketing strategy to improve communication between businesses & clients.

Mr Amedeo Guffanti, General Manager of 77Agency, was invited to be the guest speaker at the conference. He gave the definition of “digital convergence”, explained what it is all about and how it can support retailers. Here are the Five Ws of his interview to Engage:

WHAT: Digital Convergence

Internet has been conceived as a channel for a while now, but in reality it is not. Instead it is a platform that aggregates and absorbs traditional media (newspapers, TV, radio) through constant digitalization. Likewise, convergence is a phenomenon that also affects the electronic devices themselves, which are increasingly hybridized to offer a variety of additional functions on top of regular features.

WHY: boost sales through correct use of digital

The challenge for advertisers today is to collect customer data in order to provide consumers with useful, targeted and personalized advertising aimed to increase brand awareness and turnover. We have to learn how to interpret correctly the digital imprint that users leave in the Internet.

WHEN: timing is the key

Our experience in this industry teaches us that the first to grasp new trends are those who perform more efficiently at the end. That is why 77Agency is focusing on e-commerce and digital advertising tools to drive traffic to physical points of sale.

Two years ago we released GotU , a platform that maps points of sale and integrates with user profiles on social networks to offer hyper-targeted and highly efficient advertising planning.

WHO: retailers to use digitally collected data to provide better service to clients

Today data is the key for success in business. More correctly interpreted data ultimately means better customer service. A company to survive now must necessarily be data-driven much the same as the bigs of the industry (Facebook, Google and Amazon) that have built a proper business model based on data.

WHERE: Amazon, Google My Business and Waze for better ads reach

Digitalization of retail chains and drive-to-store traffic remain our priorities. Consequently, we evaluate new advertising solutions offered by Amazon, Google My Business and Waze platforms.

March, 28^th, 2018

By Anna Chertkova

77Agency offered an insight on the anatomy of the modern digital consumer explaining why it is important for each brand to define a profile of its potential customers before launching any marketing activity, both online and offline.

Here’s the Five Ws of the article that was published by Ninja Marketing with the contribution of 77Agency professionals.

WHO: Chatbots & Co

Preferences and requirements of modern clients should not only be satisfied but previewed in advance. Marketing automation, Chabot and artificial intelligence – all of them making up personalized customer experience – are the best allies of each brand and retailer. A thing to consider is that 40% of customers do not really care whether customer service is provided by a real person or a Chabot, given that customer service is guaranteed. Numbers speak clearly: customized communication and ad hoc services develop into +78% conversions in eCommerce.

WHEN: within few seconds

The trick is to capture customer’s attention in a few seconds: the concentration capacity of a man is now lower than that of a goldfish. And this explains high performance of video ads of 6 seconds long and 7% conversion loss rate due to slow upload of eCommerce sites.

WHERE: social media

The digital consumer spends an average of 2 hours a day on social media and uses about 7 channels to publish, comment and interact. Social networks embracing 42% of the world’s population have thus become an important camp where to deploy targeted marketing activities.
The most popular social media are Facebook (2.17 billion users), YouTube (1.5 billion users) and WhatsApp and Messenger (1.3 billion each). Instagram and Snapchat are also to consider as modern digital consumers love video content and short creative videos guarantee quick engagement.

WHY: importance of constant digital interaction

91% of companies use two or more social channels to interact with customers and prospects.
Worldwide, over 65 million businesses have a Facebook page and 25 million Instagram profiles are associated with trademarks. This commitment to social networks seems to be appreciated, given that 80% of users follow at least one company on Instagram and that 1/3 of the most visited Instagram Stories are produced and published by brands themselves.

WHAT: shopping online
Millennials (67%) show a clear preference for online purchases over traditional shopping.
Many buy online using their smartphone, and this trend is bound to grow as by 2020 it is expected that 45% of online sales will be made from mobile. Mobile is also handy for pre-purchase research and post-purchase customer service as 53% of digital consumers use mobile for all phases of the purchase.