Amanda Gallucci says, “The first thing most people think when they hear “influencers” is promotion. Important people with an engaged following can amplify the reach of whatever idea, content or brand they choose to share. If you only weave influencers into your content strategy when your finished product is ready to be promoted, however, you’re missing out on the full potential of having respected experts on your team. Knowing when and how they can best be engaged at different stages is critical to moving these leaders from outside influencers to brand partners”. How... [...]

If you are looking for an easy way to create animated videos for your marketing, either on YouTube or on your own site, My Character Video may be the solution you have been looking for. MS Powerpoint is capable of making videos, but it’s not easy to do anything but slide shows. With this new software, that all changes. My Character Video has a portfolio of animated characters and other pre-defined resources. You can mix and match and create new unique animated character videos or you use (and optionally, tweak) the existing professional pre-made animated character video templates. You get: •... [...]

Erin Hogg says, “For many companies, hiring an agency or vendor to manage digital marketing can solve many issues, and can lead to lifts in conversions. But what happens when that relationship becomes too costly and the results leave much to be desired? For JacksonWhite Attorneys at Law, the firm took notice of the lackluster performance and high costs of an external digital marketing vendor. Read this MarketingSherpa B2C case study to learn how the firm brought its digital marketing in-house and saw improvements in traffic and marketing spend“. B2C Marketing: 65% lift in organic traffic... [...]

Pamela Vaughan says, “Social media is an extremely valuable tool for promoting all your awesome marketing content. But with so many social networks providing their own individual content sharing and follow buttons, it’s often difficult to know which social media button to use for what purpose. Be confused no more! We’ve put together a handy, comprehensive guide to help you understand the differences between the share and follow buttons for the top five social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest), as well as how to implement them on your website, blog,... [...]

Lara O’reilly says, “YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki confirmed at Re/code’s Code/Mobile conference last night that the Google-owned video platform is exploring the launch of an ad-free subscription service. Re/code reports Wojcicki said: “YouTube right now is ad-supported, which is great because it has enabled us to scale to a billion users; but there’s going to be a point where people don’t want to see the ads” Just like Pandora and Spotify before it, there are just two options left on the table for users: you choose ads, or you choose to pay a fee... [...]

Jack Kosakowski says, “OK, I’ll admit it. At first, I didn’t buy into the “social selling”craze. I’d see social media experts popping up everywhere, claiming that social selling was the wave of the future. But I didn’t even know who half of these “experts” were. (Then again, six months ago I thought Twitter was what a chatty bird might do, and Google Plus was an internal email service for Google employees. My bad.) Good thing I started consuming massive amounts of content on the topic, because I soon realized that the statistics on social selling were not a joke, and I finally... [...]

Pete Pachal says, “Google’s on a mission to reinvent email. Its weapon: Inbox, a standalone app that launched last week. Inbox aims to make email more useful with several new tools. It surfaces relevant content (photos, for example) and information from within individual messages so you don’t have to open anything to get at what you really want. Bundles sort your messages for you, letting you find important messages faster. Plus you can add your own reminders that work with Google Now. But there’s something important that Inbox isn’t: Gmail. Although the whole aim of... [...]

Christopher Ratcliff says, “This is a huge increase from the 45% of online users using click and collect last Christmas. Obviously the main benefit of click and collect is the ability to pick up purchases when and where the customer chooses. You don’t have to wait in your house all day for a package, or take a trip down to the sorting office before it closes on a Saturday morning if you’ve missed it. The other benefit is that theoretically click and collect should always be free to the customer. Almost 80% of the online shoppers surveyed said they expect click and collect to be offered for... [...]

Verónica Maria Jarski says, “Content marketing is all the rage, but it has a dark side that businesses must acknowledge. One horrifying fact: Though 27 million pieces of content are shared daily and 86% of B2B organizations use content marketing, only 21% of marketers think they’re successful at measuring the ROI of their content, according to studies that Scripted cites in the following infographic. Worse still, 48% of marketers don’t have a documented content marketing strategy. And worst of all, that lack of vision affects how consumers feel about those companies: “74%... [...]

Rob Litterst says, “For decades, every media kit has been touting the same basic demographics: number of readers, gender, ages, HHI, geographies, education, job title, industry, buying intent, authority (ability to buy), budget, etc. In the ‘70s, the kits began to include psychographics — beliefs, attitudes, opinions, and values. Both psychographics and demographics are important for building a portrait of your audience. But often that information is no longer enough to distinguish your media property from a competitor’s. Advertisers have more choices than ever before. Especially given... [...]