This press release was originally published on PR Newswire.

Intero Digital Appoints Leaders for New Innovation Lab to Revolutionize the Client Experience and Lead the Industry Through Creativity and Invention

Intero Digital, a trailblazer in digital marketing, is thrilled to announce Ty Martin and Shawn Denney as the leaders of its newly established Innovation Lab. This initiative is set to revolutionize the way Intero Digital approaches digital marketing with a focus on developing cutting-edge solutions that address the unique needs of its clients and the industry at large.

Ty Martin, vice president of strategy and growth at Intero Digital, says: “The only truly sustainable competitive advantage is to continually innovate. In the Innovation Lab, we’re not just keeping up; we’re setting the pace. Our goal is to empower our clients with unparalleled competitive advantages that make them look like rock stars in their organizations. This lab represents our commitment to not just envision the future of digital marketing but create it.”

“The Innovation Lab is about pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in digital marketing,” adds Shawn Denney, growth strategist at Intero Digital. “We’re here to innovate our service lines to better meet the evolving needs of our clients and the industry at large. It’s an exciting time to be at the forefront of this field, and I’m eager to leverage our collective expertise to drive real change.”

The Innovation Lab is dedicated to exploring new horizons in digital marketing, from bespoke technology solutions to innovative strategies that address complex marketing challenges. Under the leadership of Martin and Denney, the lab aims to provide Intero Digital’s clients with a distinct edge in a highly competitive landscape.

Ellen Corrigan, chief revenue officer at Intero Digital, highlights the significance of this new venture. “With Shawn and Ty at the helm of the Innovation Lab, we’re poised to redefine excellence in digital marketing,” she says. “Their combined experience and visionary approach are exactly what we need to ensure our clients not only keep pace with the rapidly changing business and digital environment, but also lead the charge.”

The launch of the Innovation Lab underscores Intero Digital’s commitment to innovation, client success, and staying ahead of industry trends. It marks a new chapter in the company’s mission to deliver unparalleled digital marketing results.

Elevating your brand’s presence is a journey that involves not only clever marketing or close customer relationships, but also a deep dive into the world of employee engagement. You might be surprised to learn that the level of enthusiasm — or lack thereof — from your team members often marks the line between businesses that soar and those that stall. 

The magic of employee engagement touches every corner of your business, from keeping staff and clients around to boosting productivity and profits. Making sure your team feels a deep connection with your brand and its values is the secret to transforming them into your biggest cheerleaders. 

In a world where more than half of companies admit it’s tougher to keep employees than hire new ones, the success of your company hinges on creating an environment that makes people not only want to join, but also choose to stick around. 

The first step toward cultivating this kind of culture at your company is recognizing the intrinsic link between employee appreciation and enhanced productivity. In fact, employees are 69% more likely to exert additional effort if they feel valued and appreciated. 

This interconnectedness between engagement and productivity sets the stage for a thriving workplace, where employees feel a genuine sense of purpose and a connection to the overarching goals of the organization. 

And if you need more convincing, remember this: The vibe your employees give off shapes your customers’ experiences. Engaged and loyal team members lead to customers who not only stick around, but also bring new business your way through referrals. 

Now that you’re in on the secret of how crucial engaged employees are, let’s talk strategy. While there are many approaches, here are the top hitters: 

1. Craft and share your vision.
   It’s up to leaders to ensure every team member can echo the company’s mission and values. When employees bond with your vision and believe in their work, engagement naturally blooms. 

2. Build trust.
   Trust among team members and between staff and leadership is foundational for reaching goals and maintaining engagement. Being transparent about plans and progress — and ensuring actions match words — is critical. 

3. Recognize efforts.
   A simple “thank you” can work wonders, as can structured rewards programs. Recognition fuels a sense of worth and motivates high performance. 

4. Highlight purpose.
   Everyone’s role is vital. Help your team see the value in their work, its impact on the company, and how it influences the customer experience. 

5. Address toxic behavior.
   A positive team environment reflects well on your business. Toxic behavior, on the other hand, can demolish morale and engagement. Leaders must act decisively to maintain a healthy workplace culture. 

Your enthusiastic employees are likely already buzzing about your brand. Give them amazing content to share and they’ll light up the conversation even more.   

Encourage them to spread the word in their circles with incentives like referral bonuses or branded swag that sparks conversations. And don’t forget the power of social media. Providing engaging content for your team members to share helps them showcase your brand, vision, expertise, and capabilities. 

At Intero Digital, we foster engagement through an employee advocacy program that rewards employees for sharing company content on social media. It’s a win-win-win: We boost our online presence, we help our colleagues grow as thought leaders by feeding them awesome content to share, and they get meaningful gifts from the company in return.  

Since we kicked off this program in 2023, not only have we seen an increase in employee engagement, but we’ve also seen some other big wins for the company: more social media activity among our team, a spike in website traffic, more followers rolling in, and a boost in leads, too. This proves that getting your team engaged online isn’t just good for likes and shares; it can have a major impact on your business growth.  

Ultimately, your brand is a beacon for your employees, inspiring them and guiding their actions. If your team lives and breathes your brand, your business is set to flourish. Remember: If your employees aren’t buying into what your company stands for, why should your customers? 

If one thing’s certain, it’s that the digital marketing space always keeps marketers on their toes. And our exclusive report, “Revolutionizing Reach: The 2024 Digital Marketing Landscape You Can’t Ignore,” proves it. The report is chock-full of fascinating insights and significant statistics, all of which illustrate the importance of keeping pace with industry trends and technological changes. 

Without a doubt, the need to leverage digital marketing tactics has continued to grow. With people spending so much time glued to their devices, it’s more important than ever for marketers to share compelling information, ideas, hacks, and thought leadership to capture attention and stand out. 

Some of the exciting findings we discovered that are shaping the digital marketing industry include the following: 

We did a deep dive into more than 107,000 pieces of content, and the average word count of the most-shared articles was 551.8 words. That’s much lower than the previous year’s average of 792 words. 

Forty-one percent of Amazon sellers market products on social media — a 15% increase from the previous year. This growth indicates a shift toward cross-platform marketing strategies for Amazon listings. By promoting their products on social media, sellers are not only tapping into a wider audience, but also driving additional traffic to their listings.

Contextual targeting involves placing ads based on the content of a website or page instead of relying on user history, making this tactic a game changer as we continue to move toward a cookieless future. In 2023, global spend on contextual advertising was estimated at $227.38 billion, and it’s projected to surpass $562.1 billion by 2030, indicating strong growth and adoption. 

Google Bard was launched in Beta in February 2023 and was made generally available in May. In May, Bard hit 142.6 million visits, up 187.2% from the previous month. The adoption of Bard is building Google’s credibility in the generative AI space as it continues to incorporate those capabilities into its search engine and other products.

Engagement rates for micro-influencers are much higher than those of macro-influencers — 18% and 5%, respectively. This highlights the increasing demand for authenticity and relatability in content. 

Above all else, our report is a snapshot of what’s happening in the digital marketing industry and where it’s headed in the near future. It’s a data- and anecdote-driven look at why continually molding and shaping your digital marketing strategy matters now more than ever. 

We met KitchenSupply in 2022 — the brand was operating under the name Escali at the time. The company specializes in making kitchen equipment, such as thermometers and measuring scales, and it defines itself as a trusted, precise, and professional kitchen supplies brand. It also owns a coffee brand called The London Sip, and at the time, Escali was attempting to bring the Escali and The London Sip brand personalities together. 

Despite these ambitions, Escali was experiencing a negative slide on the Amazon platform and did not have a clear set of Amazon marketing objectives. The company was already working with an agency partner, but it wasn’t seeing results, and even though the company was hesitant to end the agency partnership before the end of the year, it recognized the need to act fast to turn its Amazon results around. 

Enter Intero Digital. 

When our partnership with Escali (soon to be KitchenSupply) began, the brand was embarking on a period of change and growth. The package the company needed was for Intero Digital to manage the omni-channel marketing strategy and digital transformation for its shifting brands. 

Soon after we started working together, the company acquired two more brands: Joyce Chen and Old Stone Pizza Kitchen. After the acquisition was complete, these brands were brought into our strategy as well. 

Our work with these brands under the newly formed KitchenSupply umbrella, as well as the brands’ international channels, have been focused on growing Amazon communication and content, initiating and boosting Amazon marketing objectives, and ultimately using Amazon marketing strategy analysis to cultivate better financial results. All our additional resources have gone toward crafting an omni-channel approach to achieve the new umbrella brand’s goals and turn an Amazon results decline into exponential growth.  

The work we’ve done in partnership with KitchenSupply has had many components, including advertising campaigns, SEO development, assisting with product variations, and managing an overall marketing strategy. We’ve worked with the team to make sure we’re spending KitchenSupply’s marketing dollars in the right places and that we’re driving growth in sustainable, desired ways across the portfolio.  

Overall, our successes have come from nudging the needle across the entire catalog rather than hoping for transformative growth within singular products.  

The Amazon results? From November 2022 to November 2023, KitchenSupply saw 82.7% growth in Amazon shipped cost of goods sold (COGS), while sell-through for shipped COGS grew 31.5% year over year. In terms of Amazon financial results, these figures are impressive, but the story gets even clearer when you consider that the month prior to partnering with Intero Digital, Escali (now KitchenSupply) was looking at a 20% decline in shipped COGS. The company had been experiencing declines month after month, so our assistance helped KitchenSupply not only carve out growth, but also salvage a bad year and turn a very intimidating tide.  

For the client, the financial outcomes have been transformative, allowing KitchenSupply to halt a pattern of diminishing returns.  

For us, the success of these Amazon results rests on one thing: an engaged partnership. Prospective clients often operate under the wishful notion that an agency partner can solve all their problems — that no matter how snowed-under they are, the agency partner will be able to come in and just take over. But there is no magic formula for achieving transformative Amazon results. Success is much more about collaborating to work toward strong goals, driven by a shared purpose. 

The KitchenSupply team has been highly communicative and involved from the start. Without this level of engagement, we would have been far less likely to achieve such great success in our partnership. Because KitchenSupply is a communicative, motivated, transparent, hard-working client, we have been able to rise together to not only meet expectations and achieve goals, but also exceed them.  

Reaching the forefront of a crowded marketplace is a goal digital businesses strive for, aiming to grasp the attention of users browsing online. However, reaching the top spot in search rankings requires understanding the nuances of the platform your business is appearing on, whether it be the web or in app stores.   

App store optimization (ASO) is the foundation of mobile app marketing and sets the stage for complementary strategies down the line. In this article, we’ll dive into the intricacies of ASO, contextualizing it through SEO while noting the significant differences to consider. 

ASO consists of refining app store listings for increased reach, downloads, and engagement within the major app stores. Today, we’ll primarily focus on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Each marketplace contains its own algorithm, distinct user behaviors, layouts, and features that app developers must familiarize themselves with in order to succeed. 

Strategies such as keyword and creative optimization, A/B testing, and conversion optimization are all required within the stores to be able to perform in the most efficient and effective way possible. 

Several factors gauge app store success. Primarily, improvements in your app visibility and conversions are what will dictate how well your mobile marketing strategies are performing. To increase their reach, rankings, and downloads, app developers must grasp what affects them in the first place. 

1. Keyword and metadata optimization: This involves the analysis, modification, and continuous refinement of your app listing fields, such as the title, subtitle, and keyword bank for the iOS App Store and the title, short description, and full description for the Google Play store
2. Creative optimization: This is the enhancement of visual assets found on your app listing, including icons, preview graphics, app preview videos, and screenshots.
3. User engagement: Marketplace tools such as Apple’s In-App Events and Google’s Promotional Content help promote user engagement and discoverability in the stores. Developers can leverage native tools like the ones mentioned to target both new, existing, and lapsed users.
4. A/B testing: No matter how polished your app store listing might appear, there’s always room for improvement. A/B testing involves preemptively editing specific assets through different variants to see how users respond before implementing them to your primary app listing. 

Contextualizing App Store Optimization: SEO Similarities 

Keywords are a staple of both app store optimization and search engine optimization. Providing the framework for the rest of your mobile marketing strategies, keywords help guide your efforts in reaching the right users through relatable and relevant terms. Both ASO and SEO require understanding how your audience performs search queries and what features or products they are looking for so you can develop a relatable and effective keyword strategy. These keywords act as a general starting point for further iterations, paid search initiatives, and A/B testing. 

User engagement is also critical for success in both ASO and SEO. When optimizing for search engines, the bulk of your engagement lies in the content found on your website, with the objective of helping the page in question rank higher. In ASO, you can also leverage app store listing elements like preview videos, screenshots, and copy to help increase conversions and, thus, rank higher. Additionally, you can use native tools like iOS In-App Events and Google Promotional Content to encourage engagement through highlighted events, offers, and activities found within your app. 

How App Store Optimization Differs From Search Engine Optimization 

Although imagery is important in both ASO and SEO, how they affect performance can differ greatly. The role of creatives in SEO is to ensure the images complement the content on the page and contribute to a favorable position when indexed by the algorithm. This means they can often play a more contextual and technical role than a commercial one. In ASO, screenshots and preview videos help provide context, as well, but serve as powerful conversion drivers. Visuals in an app store listing inform users of potential app benefits, provide a glimpse into what they can expect, and help increase downloads through engaging imagery that resonates with the features they are looking for in an effort to secure a download. 

Another area of contrast is the direct impact user feedback has on app store performance. Ratings and reviews, whether positive or negative, influence how app store algorithms “see” your app and determine how it should rank. For example, an app with a 3-star rating and increasingly negative reviews likely has a high drop-off rate post-download. Because the rating and user retention are low, the app won’t be considered favorably for search rankings or potential featuring opportunities. 

Last but not least is the data used when measuring the impact of ASO. SEO relies on web data to accurately pull metrics and gauge performance, whereas ASO depends on mobile data — or at least it should. Some developers and app marketers make the fatal mistake of using the wrong data to guide their ASO efforts. Considering the majority of app users discover new apps directly on the app stores, you should be using information derived from the platform it is actually operating on. 

After illustrating the differences between ASO and SEO, it can be tricky to pinpoint how we can use the two in tandem to craft a mobile marketing strategy that works harmoniously. The first step is to find similarities and distinctions in the behaviors of your audience on web and mobile. The results garnered from this digital audit can then guide you in crafting a journey for your potential users depending on where they started. 

For example, a user may perform a Google search with the term “shop clothing deals.” If your SEO strategy is optimized to have you ranking among the top search results, users can click the link that leads to your website. However, your priority is to not only sell a product, but also increase your app user base. After landing on your site, the user may then discover a promotional offer — “Additional 30% off when purchasing through the app.” Now you’ve got yourself a potential sale and a new user in just a few taps. 

Searching for the interconnected possibilities of web and mobile can yield much better results than looking at each individually. Instead of dividing SEO and ASO, businesses can find the opportunity to merge both into one consolidated digital marketing plan to reach their goals.