Happy New Year! Now that the winter holidays are over, most of us are ready to forge ahead and make 2019 even more successful than 2018. During this transition, we tend to reflect on how we did last year, what we learned, what changes and improvements we need to make and what new knowledge we need to acquire.
Tis the Season…to Celebrate
During the year, we get so busy that we forget to relax, unwind, have fun and be thankful for the relationships we’ve developed, built and sustained over time. So whether you’re working during the holidays or taking time off, think about how you can celebrate this special time of year and bring joy, peace and comfort to others. Here are some of our favorite ways to celebrate the holidays.
Marketing Apps to Help You Stay on Top of Your Game
It’s only been a decade since the first smartphone was introduced. With 77% of Americans owning smartphones, they have changed the way we live and work. Today, many of us are more attached to our smartphones than to our desktops. That’s because we are an increasingly mobile workforce. In fact, 70% of people who work do so remotely at least once a week.
How to Put Theory to Practice Using A/B Testing
When investing time and money in marketing, it’s critical for your company’s resources to be directed toward the most effective initiatives. Therefore, it is important to review and analyze the performance of all marketing programs. Analysis helps fine-tune marketing efforts and enables you to make adjustments that will generate a higher ROI. Earlier blogs have explored the analytics process and its potential uses. But, there’s a step before analysis that is often not given the focus it deserves: testing.
How to Set Realistic Marketing Expectations
It’s natural for companies to expect immediate return on any investment. The truth is, building a business takes time and patience. Marketing is an essential element to generating business, but unrealistic marketing expectations are common. Setting the bar too high and establishing unrealistic deadlines can result in disappointment and failure. To avoid unrealistic marketing expectations, follow these guidelines to set achievable goals.
9 Tips to Boost Engagement in Your Email Campaigns
Despite the constant parade of new communication apps and technologies, email is still a messaging mainstay. In fact, 86% of professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes. While there are a variety of factors that impact the success of email campaigns, here are some best practices to help you generate the higher response and engagement rates you seek.
Content Development: How to Create Content that Delivers Results
Did you know 58 percent of marketers say “original written content” is the most important type of content to use with current and potential customers? But consistent content creation takes time, energy and brain power, not to mention it can be difficult to continually come up with new and relevant messages. We all have our own style, routine and approach to building our brand and communicating our value proposition to our target audiences.
50 Marketing Terms You Need to Know
Like with most industries, marketing is filled with jargon. To stay relevant, it’s important to understand today’s industry lingo and buzzwords. The following is a collection of marketing terms to help you brush up on your language and perhaps introduce you to a few new marketing terms.
The Future is Now: Marketing Technology of Today and Tomorrow
Choosing the right marketing technology investments is difficult. Considerations include short-term needs, long-term goals, budget, resources, ROI and more. Additionally, it is essential that involved staff members understand the technology, its capabilities and functions. There are certain mainstays we can agree on (email, websites and CRM systems), but with the ever-changing world of technology, new, trending and experimental tech can be risky.
Evergreen Content: The “What, Why, How”
Marketers love their jargon. Whether they are talking about authenticity, KPIs or pain points, marketers have a language of their own. The term “evergreen content” is just another example. Sometimes it can be difficult to decipher passing buzzwords from vital marketing initiatives. However, evergreen content is an important concept for marketers to understand and utilize.
Testimonials: What People Say Speaks Volumes
When it comes to purchasing decisions, it’s the recommendations of other people, our peers in particular, that has the greatest influence on us. In fact, 89% of B2B marketers consider testimonials the most effective form of content marketing when it comes to converting leads into customers. What people say about you or your company speaks volumes. And when customers share their positive experiences, it helps you attract more interested prospects and shorten the sales cycle. That’s why it is important to seek out testimonials, prominently display them and distribute them widely.
Are You Falling for These 11 Social Media Myths?
Social media is a way of life. In fact, two-thirds of American adults get their daily news from social media. Marketers, in particular, have been quick to tap into this trend since the dawn of social networking and sharing sites. However, even though social media has been around since 1997, there still are many misunderstandings about best practices in social media marketing. Here is a look at 11 myths still grappling social media strategists today.
How to Use Website Pop-Ups Effectively
Most of us don’t think favorably of the word pop-up. In fact, today’s browsers come preinstalled with pop-up blockers for those of us who remember the days of blinking “$1,000,000 cash winner!” pop-ups from unsafe websites. If you feel this way, you’re in the majority as 73% of people dislike pop-up ads. With a stigma like that, it’s hard to imagine why professional businesses utilize similar pop-up marketing on their websites.
How to Capitalize on Seasonal Marketing Opportunities
When it comes to B2C marketing, seasons and holiday campaigns bombard us from all angles. Oftentimes, we’ll find winter merchandise and advertisements even before the weather starts to change. Seasonal marketing is trendy, urgent and predictable—three words not often associated with the counterpart B2B marketing. However, does that mean there’s no place for seasonal marketing in the B2B space?
How to Create Stellar Call-to-Actions (CTA)
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.
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?
Tips for Unlocking the Keys to Success
As a result of a recent flood in our house, I found myself going through boxes and belongings, cleaning out, sorting and reorganizing. During the process, I came across a letter written almost 100 years ago by my grandfather. Today we might call his letter a blog. His letter was titled SUCCESS and here’s what he wrote.
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.
Sharpen the Saw: The 7th Habit of Effective Marketers
The first six habits create a foundation for success. According to Stephen Covey, the seventh and final habit is “sharpen the saw.” It seeks to uphold and further build upon the foundation established by the rest. As an example of this habit, Covey cites the story a worn-out man who has been sawing down a tree for hours.
How to Create Synergy in Marketing
This week we continue with our series, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketers. The first five habits uncover vital principles and best practices of effective individuals and teams. These five habits identify values that lead to interdependence and meaningful communication. Now that we are near the end of the series, we combine the efforts of all the previous habits to form the sixth: synergy.
Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
For the last four weeks, we’ve been discussing the habits of highly effective marketers based on the principles described by Stephen Covey in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The first four habits are: Be proactive, Begin with the end in mind, Put first things first and Think win-win. The fifth habit is “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
How to Create Marketing Win-Win Scenarios
This is the fourth blog in a series of seven on the habits of highly effective marketers. They are based on the principles identified by Stephen Covey in his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The first three habits are: how to be proactive, how to begin with the end in mind and how to put first things first. Next comes “win-win.”
Priority Management: Put First Things First
Continuing our series about the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketers, based on Stephen Covey’s principles, this week we’ll discuss the third habit: “Put first things first.” (If you missed our last two installments, you can find them here: Do You Know the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketers? and It’s Important to Begin With the End in Mind.) “Put first things first” is not about time management. According to Covey, it is about priority management.
