The “call to action” (CTA) is an essential component of any marketing initiative. It’s the answer to “what now?” after any article, video, advertisement, blog or other promotional offer. The call to action represents a compelling message that is intended to get your prospects to do what you want them to do. It’s a vital step to lead generation (which 63% of marketers state is their biggest challenge) and also guides prospects through the buying journey.
Category: Marketing
3 Keys to an Effective Social Selling Strategy
The average person will spend five years of their life on social media. The simple truth is: social networking technology has changed the way we communicate. With expansive networks across multiple platforms, many of us do most of our communicating online. So shouldn’t sales and marketing initiatives follow suit?
How to Refresh Your Marketing Strategy
You’ve been working your 2018 marketing plan since the beginning of the year, but is it delivering the results you expected? No matter how rock-solid your plan was in January, circumstances change, sometimes dramatically. Therefore, it’s important to evaluate your marketing strategy and adjust your approach based on current market conditions and the results of tactics implemented to date.
How to Establish an Effective Marketing Analytics Process
Data-driven marketing analytics is pivotal to the success of any marketing effort. Without the insights and direction analytics provide, companies are behind the curve ball when it comes to establishing and maintaining a competitive advantage. Based on the information collected and analysis of data, marketers can learn how customers interact with a company’s marketing content. For example, analytics show specifics such as how many pages a visitor clicked through before leaving a website or which ads are most effective.
6 Marketing Obstacles and How to Tackle Them
Marketing obstacles are a reality. While they vary from industry to industry, some pain points exist across the board. Here are the most common ones we’ve identified through the years along with some tips on how to overcome them.
Is Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Right for You?
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a strategy companies use to build relationships with specific prospects or customers. Unlike traditional B2B marketing that casts a wide net to capture as many leads as possible, ABM focuses sales and marketing resources on a clearly defined group of target accounts. Often, these accounts are assumed to be high-yield and represent the best fit for the organization and its products and services.
What Every Marketer Needs to Know About Content Platforms
Content creation, syndication and consumption platforms are like every other aspect of business. They are constantly changing. Ensure your content represents the quality and achieves the results you want by using this checklist of B2B content platforms.
The Customer Experience and Customer Service – Why Do They Matter?
et’s be clear. There is a distinct difference between customer service and the customer experience, also known as CX. Customer service entails everything a company does to “respond” to its customers. “Respond” is the key word. While fixing mistakes with a smile, saying “yes” even when it goes against company policy and diffusing disgruntled or unhappy customers efficiently and effectively are all important and can contribute to the customer experience after the fact.
Influencer Marketing: The What, Why and How
You may have heard of it, but how much do you know about influencer marketing? The phrase has been popping up more and more in the past year with headlines gracing Forbes, Entrepreneur and other national business publications. As more companies make influencer marketing a strategic priority, it’s becoming more important to investigate whether this is a passing trend or a vital initiative. Let’s start by asking the right questions.
B2B Content Marketing: 5 Trends To Watch In 2018
January typically is filled with “best of” lists, resolutions and predictions. Industry news sites feature countdowns and rewinds that take us back or forecasts that keep us looking ahead. It’s a natural time to reflect so we can learn where we’ve been and plan for the future. B2B content marketing is no different. Now that 2018 is fully underway, what predictions can we make about this year’s trends? What similarities will we see from 2017, and what changes will be made?
The Top 9 Marketing Communications Projects
Content is still king when it comes to attracting and engaging customers and prospects. But the real key to success is to identify and produce the right mix of projects with compelling messaging that demonstrates your thought leadership and core competencies. To help you accomplish those goals, here is a brief list of content-driven marketing communications projects and their purposes.
10 Questions to Help Guide Your Marketing Strategy
As companies finalize their marketing plans for 2018, it’s important to ask (and answer) some key questions. A marketing strategy combines all of an organization’s marketing goals into one comprehensive plan. While each company has a unique set of goals, the overreaching objectives are to increase business and expand corporate awareness. Here are 10 questions marketers and other executives can ask themselves as part of the marketing strategy development process.
How Contributed Content Fuels the Marketing Effort
It’s no secret that content marketing is a strategy worth investing in, but the success of your content is dependent not only on the message but on its distribution through appropriate marketing channels. A powerful blog, white paper or case study can go unnoticed if it isn’t properly circulated to target audiences. The complicated part is knowing where you will get the biggest bang for your buck. While sharing on social media is a great start, it doesn’t always expose your company and its thought leadership to new and relevant demographics. One effective and often underutilized method of outreach is contributed content or guest posting. As editorial staffs shrink and the demand for content increases, the practice is on the rise, with 61 percent of editors increasing published contributions this year.
How to Avoid These 4 Social Media Marketing Myths
Most marketers understand that social media marketing is a crucial component of their digital marketing strategy. This cross-platform plan involves building company awareness, sharing content and increasing engagement. There are multiple social media sites, and some have been in existence longer than most people realize. While many believe Facebook, introduced in 2004, was the first social media platform, LinkedIn is the true frontrunner as it started a year earlier. Twitter soon followed in 2006, with hashtags introduced in 2007. Pinterest started in 2008, but did not allow business accounts until 2012. Some of the newcomers include Instagram (2010) and Snapchat (2011). These platforms, and others not mentioned here, serve distinctive functions in the marketing realm.
Customer Surveys: A Tool For Better Decision Making
Online survey tools offer a wide range of capabilities for businesses of every size. These economical and easy-to-use services are customizable, objective and provide detailed reporting. Whether you choose platforms like SurveyGizmo, Survey Monkey, Zoho, QuestionPro or others, there are several areas of information you can gather through online customer surveys. Increase Brand Awareness In
6 Ways Google Alerts Can Fuel Your Marketing
Google Alerts is one of Google’s hidden treasures. A free tool, it helps you track trends, interesting topics or anything new that appears on the web. The service detects content on the web and automatically sends users email notifications when it finds new results that match preferences. Yet many marketers have missed the memo about how to best leverage this powerful tool.
How to Avoid the 7 Deadly Marketing Sins
Yes, marketing has changed, but so has virtually every other aspect of conducting business. So what’s new? Putting marketing into a different perspective. There are no absolutes, but what is essential is a commitment to agility, innovation and serving the vastly different needs of every customer. That’s a tall order, but it can be accomplished by avoiding these seven sins.
How to Stand Out in the Inbox: Best Practices in Email Marketing
Did you know that U.S. companies send approximately 1.47 million emails per month, and almost 60 percent of them are marketing oriented? To stand out in increasingly crowded inboxes, marketers need to capture readers’ attention in creative ways. Here are two methods to accomplish that goal through email marketing. Email Marketing: Win Them With Words
Marketing Madness: How to Avoid Insanity in a Changing Economy
Social media, data analytics, marketing automation, return on investment, corporate branding, marketing mix and marketing promotion… Addressing these and many other marketing mandates can wreak havoc on even savvy, experienced marketers. To avoid the chaotic marketing madness, here are five marketing management strategies to put your marketing initiatives on an even footing and generate the results you seek.
The Best Marketing Advice You Ever Received
We’ve been blogging for almost 10 years now. During that time we’ve covered a wide range of marketing, communications, media outreach, content development, public relations and general business topics. Along the way, we hope that readers have found our tips, suggestions and ideas practical and informational and can use them in their business and personal lives. To get a different perspective, we’ve asked some of our clients to share the best marketing advice they’ve received through the years. Here’s what we heard.
How to Use Marketing to Retain Customers
Often, the focus of marketing initiatives is focusing on how to bring in more customers. Yet, did you know that it is 6-7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a current one? That’s a statistic worth considering.
The reality is that the value of current customers is often overlooked when setting marketing goals and priorities. The process to retain customers should begin after their first purchase to ensure the development of a meaningful relationship, future sales and ongoing loyalty.
How to Generate Leads with WIIFM Marketing
“What’s in it for me?”, also known as the WIIFM factor, is a value proposition that relies on instincts. It is human nature to make changes and decisions based on how a product or service will impact the individuals using the new purchase. So, to generate more leads, here’s what communicating the WIIFM looks like.
A Treasure Trove of Data: How to Use Marketing Analytics
Marketing analysis has come a long way from inserting numbers into Excel spreadsheets. Basic information can come from Google Analytics, surveys, focus groups and input from sales teams. Even better, evolving marketing technologies enable companies to access massive amounts of data about their customers and prospects. This data can tell marketers more about how customers
Why Every CEO Needs to Know About Marketing
CEOs run organizations. They are the highest-level executive officers in the company, and their primary duties include driving revenue and profit, making major corporate decisions and managing the overall operations and resources of a company. Even if the company is small, there’s still only one person at the top responsible for those key functions. As business becomes more competitive, complex and global, the need for CEOs to expand their knowledge beyond finance and operations to sales and marketing is an imperative.
