John Boitnott says, “Let’s say you’ve built a strong online presence for you or your company, complete with active profiles on several social media platforms. You’ve even managed to amass a large number of followers to each of those pages, with those customers sometimes making purchases based on your posts. But for many brands, true success comes when your customers feel so enthusiastic, they share the news about your products and services with their friends. In an online environment, that could mean something as small as checking in with a positive comment. They may also snap a photo... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “An analysis by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) reports that Amazon Prime has 65 million US members. That’s up from 63 million Prime members in July. According to the firm, 52 percent of US Amazon customers are Prime members. That number remains unchanged from figures released by CIRP in July. The firm also points out that Prime membership growth has slowed to three percent sequentially vs. seven percent last year. A year ago, Amazon had roughly 47 million Prime members, according to CIRP”. Amazon should generate more than $78 billion from Prime members... [...]

Leslie Ye says, “As if sales wasn’t hard enough, here are three sobering statistics: The average person’s attention span is 8.25 seconds. People receive an average of 88 business-related emails a day. 43% of people delete or stop reading long emails within the first 30 seconds of opening it. Clearly, it’s getting harder and harder to reach prospects. But email as a sales tool isn’t going anywhere, so how do you cut through the clutter? The BRIEF Method of Writing Sales Emails Joe McCormack, author of Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less, thinks he has the answer. His “BRIEF”... [...]

Maz Nadjm says, “When running a quick search for the #SocialSelling hashtag through any social media listening tool, the amount of data you get in return is quite overwhelming. According to TweetReach, during the three hours before I wrote this article, #SocialSelling gathered more than 800,000 impressions on Twitter. This is just one of the many indications that show how hot of a topic social selling is right now. With so many people talking about social selling and its “powers”, there is also a lot of (often uninformed) noise to cut through. Large conversations usually carry the risk... [...]

Pamela Wilson says, “Content marketing — ugh, amirite? We talk about it a lot here. And you’re reading this because you know it’s important. You know it’s what marketing just is these days. But … it’s so complicated. Especially if you feel like you weren’t blessed with that mythical writer’s gene. That special talent for weaving words together. The ability to take your reader on a journey with every sentence you craft. I know how it feels to lack confidence in your writing abilities, because that was how I felt just six short years ago. But it turns out — luckily for all... [...]

MOZ team says, “Web technologies and their adoption are advancing at a frenetic pace. Content is a game that every type of team and agency plays, so we’re all competing for a piece of that pie. Meanwhile, technical SEO is more complicated and more important than ever before and much of the SEO discussion has shied away from its growing technical components in favor of content marketing. As a result, SEO is going through a renaissance wherein the technical components are coming back to the forefront and we need to be prepared. At the same time, a number of thought leaders have made statements... [...]

Peter O’Neille says, “Wow! It may have taken place seven days ago, but I am still exhausted — and exhilarated — from our inaugural B2B Marketing Forumin Miami last week. Here is a short recap of what we covered during the two days. Day 1: Obsess On Customers; Orchestrate A Relationship; Conduct An Engagement The opening main session began with Forrester’s James McQuivey, who inspired us all to understand both how to understand customer obsession and how to drive the necessary organizational, process, and even cultural change. Molly Murphy, from Eaton Industries, presented a best... [...]

Aja Frost says, “Technological change impacts every profession — but its impact on the sales world has been particularly dramatic. Modern sellers behave almost nothing like their predecessors. They have new tools, new techniques, and new resources at their disposal — and of course, they face new challenges. These changes require salespeople to adapt if they want to survive. Let’s explore the five biggest ways technology has transformed sales. 1) The Ability to Find, Qualify, and Connect With Buyers Around the Globe These days, salespeople don’t need to take prospects to the... [...]

Lesya Liu says, “Instagram and Snapchat continue to be some of the most disruptive forces in social media and digital marketing in general. Their influences are clear in the latest (so far only rumored) Pinterest concept. According to anonymous advertising sources close to the company, the platform wants to develop a new placement for publishers and brands to focus on organic content by creating videos and multimedia posts. Advertisers will be given an opportunity to buy sections, primarily for video. Pinterest is planning to test out the idea first before making commitment or charging for... [...]

Casie Gillette says, “Last month, my colleague Derek Edmond wrote a column here on Search Engine Land discussinghow to improve your value as a strategic SEO partner. The post included suggestions around reporting dashboards, software knowledge and industry-specific networking. What I liked about the piece was the implication that to show value, we have to do more than just provide recommendations. But it also got me thinking about the value of the recommendations themselves. If you search “show SEO value,” you’ll get a slew of posts discussing how to use data and reporting to make... [...]