marketing automation

Regardless of your organization’s marketing budget, there is one thing that marketers are never short of—data. Every customer touchpoint creates a constant flow of valuable data. However, in an age when data has been referred to as the “new oil,” much of this data remains untapped. This is a shame because what you can do with that data is nothing short of transformational.    Big data is changing the world.    You might already be aware of the stories about how political organizations around the world (sometimes illicitly) used data […]

Looking for ways to make your account-based marketing program a bit easier on your sales team? Look no further than your marketing automation platform.   Account-based marketing programs take personalization to the next level. From individualized follow-ups from your sales team to highly personal marketing touchpoints that speak to each recipient’s specific needs, the most successful account-based marketing campaigns focus on making each touch feel like your recipient is the only person in the campaign.   These programs typically start with a high-value, flashy physical item that incorporates a variable […]

When considering an email marketing or marketing automation platform, it’s easy to get analysis paralysis comparing features, promises and pricing tiers. With so many options, where do you start?   Whether you’re shopping for an alternative marketing automation platform, preparing an email or marketing automation platform RFP, or just starting to consider which platform might be right for the next level of your marketing efforts, the following questions can help you choose the right marketing automation platform for your digital marketing needs:   Be Selfish for a Minute You are, […]

Running successful, effective paid media strategies across Paid Search (Google/Bing), Paid Social (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc), and online display can be a challenging task for anyone, even marketers with tons of time. For marketers tasked with dozens of items, it becomes exponentially more difficult even for the most savvy and experienced digital marketer to keep up. Using marketing automation to enhance digital paid media campaigns can create new layers of efficiency and create a more integrated strategic approach. Here are four tricks for how you can leverage marketing automation […]

Every salesperson wants things right now, whether that’s quality leads, effective marketing materials, pricing or contract concessions. Whatever is needed to close more deals, reach their goals, earn more commission.   As marketers, we know that the problem is, not every prospect or client, even if showing initial interest, is on their same timetable. They may not have a big enough need to make a purchase right now. Or maybe they’re under contract, satisfied with their current vendor, other projects are taking priority, currently have no budget—or it’s simply taking them […]

SEO can boost your marketing automation efforts in these three ways: Build leads and lists through qualified organic traffic Utilize existing organic data to optimize conversion points Use keyword research to send targeted content to specific lists Click on the links above to jump to that section. I recently discussed this topic at the And Then Some emfluence Conference 2018. Here is the video and SlideShare of my talk: How SEO Can Boost Your Marketing Automation Efforts from emfluence   But if you’re more into reading/scanning, the meat of the […]

Now more than ever, marketing and sales strategies and communications need to be aligned in order to create an effective growth strategy. The path and singular focus of these two historically siloed business units continues to move closer together into a unified vision. I believe that inbound marketing will be the centerpiece of this unification because of the focus on pipeline growth and nurturing.   An inbound strategy, in the broadest terms, is a marketing strategy which is focused on demand generation, lead acquisition, and lead nurturing. Traditionally, the line […]

By now it’s no secret that email marketing is a must-have in every marketer’s toolbox.   More than 82% of companies—big and small alike—are using email marketing in some capacity to drive leads and sales, and they’re using it for good effect. Recent studies show that marketers rank email as the most effective channel for acquiring new leads and holding on to existing clients, and more than three quarters of marketers are happy with the ROI of email marketing.   But here’s the thing: even though the vast majority of […]

Variety is the spice of life. And yet, as marketers, it’s so easy to get stuck in a rut and stick with what we know.     As a company with its roots firmly planted in the realm of email marketing and marketing automation, we’re not about to suggest you abandon your old but profitable email habits. We are, however, thoroughly recommending that you complement your existing strategies with something a little, dare I say it, modern.    We already know that blogging and social media are perfect bedfellows for your […]

If you thought content marketing was a passing marketing trend, think again. Research by Statista suggests that B2B marketers are taking content marketing more seriously than ever in 2022. That research shows that 66% of marketers surveyed will increase their content marketing investment over the next 12 months. Furthermore, 20% of those marketers will increase that investment by 10% or more.    So why are B2B marketers investing so much in content marketing?    Changing B2B Buying Habits In many ways, B2B marketers are mirroring trends previously adopted in B2C […]

As more of everything we do is conducted online, digital privacy should be something that everyone takes more seriously. This is because we know that if the wrong person accesses the right information at the wrong time, it can cause us more than a major inconvenience. Despite this, how many of us still use the same password to access every online service we use? And seriously, if you still use a password like “P4ssW0rd1”, you should probably give yourself a good talking to.    There are numerous rules, regulations, and […]

Every relationship starts when two strangers connect for the first time and engage in conversation. In online marketing, that conversation typically begins on a website product page or landing page after a potential customer has conducted a specific search on Google (other search engines are available) or clicked on a link on a piece of content or social network.     From that initial click, marketers can learn a lot about their potential customer’s buying habits. In the seconds it takes to leap from a search engine to a website, we […]

When a marketing technology has been around for as long as email, it’s all too easy to visualize a sudden change in the eco-system, such as Apple’s recent iOS 15 Mail Privacy Protection update, as a potential extinction event. However, if we learned anything from previous “catastrophes,” such as the implementation of Gmail’s promotions tab in 2013 or GDPR in 2018, we should already know that email marketing is far more resilient than that.   Thankfully, email marketing is not a dinosaur, and Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection update is far […]

Pandemic. Protests. Election. Insurrection. Impeachment. Platforms v. Publishers.   It’s hard to believe that these and other major societal and social shifts happened in the last year alone. If you are a business owner or an individual responsible for the operations and image of a company trying to adapt to these changes, it’s been a herculean effort to even keep the doors open up to this point with so many external factors weighing upon us.   Whether it’s local business owners trying to keep their teams and businesses afloat amid […]

There’s truly no need for us to restate the details of the current coronavirus conditions we find ourselves in. With many businesses feeling like they’re in a tailspin, it’s more important now than ever to take a calm, calculated look at your marketing, advertising and overall communication efforts. And while every business is different and the level to which they’ve been impacted by the pandemic varies, we’ve put together a list of universal considerations and thought starters to focus on as we all try to navigate these uncertain waters.     #1 Don’t Lose Sight  While […]

Congratulations, you’ve taken the first steps to taking your manufacturing business to the next level with the use of email marketing! That’s right, email is still a thing. In fact, email marketing is used by 92% of manufacturer marketing professionals according to the Content Marketing Institute.   How the Manufacturers Can Incorporate Email into their Marketing Strategy In an industry where each purchase can be an intense and expensive, long drawn-out sales cycles that involve multiple stakeholders and other decision-makers, having a well-thought-out email marketing strategy to provide support is […]

Is the role of the CMO over? In Fall 2019, Forrester predicted that CMOs must broaden their view of their role or see their responsibilities divided to newly created positions, such as VP of Marketing Technology. Global corporations, including Johnson & Johnson, Uber and Coca Cola, are revisiting the role of the CMO, and in some cases eliminating it altogether.   Forrester is not saying marketing is less critical to success. Rather, org structures are redefining roles to adapt to evolving marketing technology, consumer sentiment, employee expectations, talent acquisition, automation, […]

Welcome to 2020! New decade, new you. There are dozens of new trends in digital marketing every year, so I wanted to take some time to highlight a few that I think are the most important or potentially impactful (generally). These trends are personal opinion, of course.   Business Intelligence and Data Analytics Drive Business Decision-Making In my personal opinion, business intelligence and advanced data analytics are probably the most important trends to follow in 2020. As digital marketers, there is no shortage of data to create compelling “data driven” […]

So you’re thinking it’s time to evaluate your email marketing program. Maybe you’re concerned that trends have changed, your content is outdated, or that you’re missing opportunities by not having a firm understanding of what’s working to drive results. It can seem like a daunting project. And depending on how complex your email marketing campaigns are, chances are, it’s unlikely that it’s a simple task.   There’s a lot that deserves regular review. Email marketing is a symphony of data, technology, content, strategy and workflows. If there’s any area that’s […]

Another Google Marketing Live is in the books, and we have more insight into the path of Google Ads for the year. Last year was all about automation, and we continue to optimize to those initiatives today: Developing rich and diverse text ad assets for Responsive Search Ads is an ongoing task in our queue. Many of our campaigns have moved to Automated Bid Strategies with improved results for our clients. Attribution past Last Click is gaining adoption. We are making use of Smart campaigns, specifically Smart Shopping, to widen […]

This story starts with t-shirts.   From our A/B Test t-shirts to our I Opted In to Get This Bag totes, emfluence has a long history of spinning digital marketing lingo into apparel. We like puns and we like marketing, and if we’re going to wear shirts anyway, why not have some fun with our brand? Turns out we’re not the only ones who like our shirts, and for years people have asked us: how can I get one of those shirts for myself?   So we did something a […]

There’s nothing that makes us happier than hearing from happy emfluence Marketing Platform users, which is why we’re excited to share the Spring 2018 G2 Crowd Report results with you.   G2 Crowd is a business solution review platform with a robust (and busy) marketing automation platform category. Each quarter, G2 Crowd releases reports to help buyers understand how software users feel about business software solutions, like the emfluence Marketing Platform. Rankings in each report are based on the data provided by actual users, which are averaged for the category—in […]

Meet InspiroBot, the internet’s first artificial intelligence bot solely dedicated to generating unlimited inspirational quotes.   The results are an intriguing mix of terrifying, hilarious, and sometimes just a little too close to accurate. But here’s the thing: if you print out your InspiroBot creations and hang them around your office (like we did), no one is going to mistake InspiroBot’s quotes with actual inspirational quotes. The sentences are a little off. The inspiration is a little frightening. Something about them just isn’t…human.   InspiroBot is nonetheless a harbinger of […]

Content marketing is a vast and ever-changing industry, so I thought I’d take some time to look into my crystal ball and see what the next year might bring. Naturally, I can’t actually see the future, but I like to stay as up to the minute as possible. Here are the content trends I think will dominate content marketing 2017.

Banks and Credit Unions call it “onboarding:” A series of communications that cultivates the relationship with a new customer and provides an opportunity to (eventually) talk about other services that they could provide for the customer. The rest of us may know this process as a “welcome series,” “lead nurture campaign,” and “customer loyalty campaign.” It’s all the same – and it’s great marketing automation! At the 2014 emfluence Marketing Platform User Conference, Jenny Nichols from CommunityAmerica Credit Union and I shared their 5-part, 90 day “honeymoon” onboarding email campaign, […]

Our recent whitepaper on customer retention in the banking industry painted a detailed picture of a changing marketplace where customers leave banks at an alarming rate (8-10%) within their first two years of joining, and often because of a simple lack of effective, consistent and timely client communication.

There’s an obvious and simple solution: rebuild your communication approach for your banking customers in a way that can automatically nurture them and build long-term loyalty. If your customers are leaving you for services they didn’t know you had, then all you have to do is have a better plan for telling them about your offerings.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that you’ll find in pretty much every marketer’s stack. With it, you have the ability to track hundreds of metrics across your entire marketing stack to  your sales funnel and leverage it in your marketing game to improve your strategy.     This is valuable information right at your fingertips but even we have to admit that it can be overwhelming to look at all at once. While data is an important driver of well-planned and executed campaigns, you don’t want to get stuck […]