Tony Delmercado says, “Need more and better leads from your content marketing? (I mean, who doesn’t?) Email marketing is still the go-to tool for getting and nurturing quality leads, engaging and escorting them all the way through your sales funnel. However, ask yourself, “How many commercial emails do I delete every day without even opening them?”2 That’s the same inbox calculus your potential readers go through, too. In fact, recipients deleted nearly 10 percent of the emails that brands sent to them last year without even reading them. What’s more, more than half of successful email... [...]

Justin Gray says, “These days, marketers don’t just want a chair at the table—they want to lead the meeting. But no matter how smart and fast your marketing team is, it’s only one piece in a larger puzzle that runs your company. Whether you’re part of an in-house team or a member of an agency brought on to assist, it’s your job as a marketer to ensure the rest of the business understands that marketing influences all areas of a company. Sales, services, development—they all need marketing to amplify or clarify their message. For these reasons and more, we are now seeing the path... [...]

Jay Baer says, “The online community pendulum is swinging back. It’s no longer enough to rely on social networks for community infrastructure. Smart companies are now combining owned and rented community functions into a 1+1=3 scenario I call Omni-Social.5 The rise of this multi-faceted approach to community was the subject of a deep, strategic Webinar I hosted recently with my good friends at Janrain (a leading provider of customer identity management and community functionality, and a Convince & Convert partner). You can grab the slides and watch the reply of the “Omni-social: How... [...]

Patrick Cuttica says, “Each quarter, a brand receives an average of 9,052 inbound social messages that require a response. Any social media manager or social customer care agent knows that there’s a great deal of overlap in the Tweets a brand attracts. After all, great minds think alike—right? Your followers and fans are bound to take the words right out of each other’s mouths and ask the same questions or express similar feelings. Whether it’s a repetitive Tweet asking what time your restaurant starts serving brunch or an influx of entries for a social campaign, crafting and managing... [...]

Andrew Fischer says, “Business and customer data has existed for ages. Mostly, however, it sat hopelessly trapped in handwritten ledgers, filing cabinets, and floppy disks, a precious resource untapped. The introduction of Data Management Platforms (DMPs) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) aid the increase of customer data collection so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone, according to IBM. With integrated media buying tools, businesses are able to unlock the secrets within their customer data and use it within their programmatic... [...]

Kayla Matthews says, “There’s a reason why email is the second biggest category where marketers spend their money. Dollar for dollar, email is still the most effective digital marketing tactic available. Email confirmations are one branch of email marketing, and they can be used for many purposes. For example, when someone uses an online ordering system to purchase something from your website, they should get a confirmation email, so they know the order went through properly and when they can expect it to be fulfilled. If someone subscribes to your mailing list, they should get a confirmation... [...]

Jeffrey L. Cohen says, “If it’s Friday, it must be my day to create some content. Marketers are busy planning, creating, optimizing, and analyzing, and for many of us, creating content is just one of many things on our to-do lists. We’ve all seen the stats that reveal B2B marketers are spending more time, budget, energy, happy hours, hackathons, and puppy time on content. But to what end? It’s great to have that fabulous piece of content to attract readers (or more often than not, downloaders), but what happens next? Those big download numbers you’ve been getting don’t count for much.... [...]

Graham Gullan says, “As marketers, Peter Drucker’s oft-repeated phrase, “What gets measured gets improved,” is more than a piece of wisdom—it’s a way of life. We know we need to measure results in order to actually get them, but all too often we’re measuring the wrong things—especially when it comes to social media metrics. It’s easy to fall into the trap of using “vanity metrics” to measure social media marketing. Vanity metrics are those sneaky metrics that make you feel good (Followers! Likes! Favorites!), but don’t necessarily show success at impacting the bottom line... [...]

Eric Hinson says, “January has come and gone, and February slipped out the door right behind it. Now it’s March, and you’re probably working hard to implement all those new campaigns and initiatives you developed in December. But did you set the right goals? And are you using the right tools to achieve those goals? The fact of the matter is, if you didn’t include a video marketing strategy as part of your broader content marketing plan, you’re missing out. Video isn’t just a nice afterthought. It’s a chance to take your marketing strategy into the stratosphere.2 (highlight to tweet) The... [...]

David Chapman says, “Many people ask me how they can optimize in AdWords. I tell them to look for opportunities in their campaigns. (highlight to tweet) There are numerous AdWords reports that can help you find areas with room for improvement. In this post, I am going to highlight some of the most actionable ones. Identify Metrics and Goals Here’s a list of common metrics that should become the basis of your AdWords strategy: – Clicks – Impressions – Click-Through Rate (CTR) – Cost – Average Cost Per Click (CPC) – Average Position – Quality Score –... [...]