How to evaluate your email mistakes so that you can use that information to become a better email marketer. At some point, everyone sends a bad email, whether that’s an email with clunky design or mistakes or image issues, and some of these email mistakes can be embarrassing at the least. But look at the bright side: there’s good that can come from carefully examining email mistakes. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Same goes for making mistakes. By learning from the email marketing mistakes you make, you’re […]

On a scale of 1 to 5, how do your customers feel about your business?   That question is getting asked and answered about your business every day online. If you are not actively tuned in to this dialog, you are both putting your business at risk and missing a great opportunity to elevate your brand.   The Importance of User Reviews Online review sites started gaining traction around 2012 and since then, their growth has become exponential. Unlike a Net Promoter Score survey that you might hire an outside […]

Once upon a time, community banks and credit unions cornered the market on personalized communications and a neighbor-to-neighbor experience for their customers. But now, with the help of marketing automation platforms, big banks are poised to take back the customer experience. If community banks and credit unions hope to challenge those big banks, they’ll need a strong content strategy and an engine to deliver useful content to their customers. A great place to start is by building a user generated content guide for community banks or for your credit union. […]

When creating content, one of the biggest challenges we have is marketers is the balance between writing for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and writing for our customers. At least, that is the internal challenge we think exists. In reality, the challenge is not nearly as big as we think. Let’s look at how to create a content marketing SEO strategy.   In its most recently product SEO Starter Guide, Google has made it clear that “optimized content” is one of the most important ranking factors to consider. But what exactly […]

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 […]

Testing your website or software application can be time-consuming, but it can help ensure a smooth user experience for your visitors and backend users. We build testing phases into every project or feature rollout; but it’s helpful to repeat testing activities, even well after deployment, to identify vulnerabilities and breakdowns before they are reported to you by your users.   The Regression Testing Template There are many types of testing procedures for documenting and validating software functionality at every stage of its development. Perhaps one of the most under-utilized, but […]

Quality over quantity is usually a solid life motto to live by, and your newsletter email list shouldn’t be any different. If you want to grow newsletter subscriptions, start by placing emphasis on opt ins (i.e., people who signed up for your content). Quality users that have chosen to opt-in want to see your name in their inbox, look forward to receiving your content, and are typically your highest engaged customers that are likely to convert. However, getting opt-ins for that healthy list can sometimes seem more like a marathon […]

Images make any content more interesting and appealing by helping readers understand your content better. Plus, images add value to your SEO efforts by increasing user engagement and accessibility of your website. There are a number of important factors that can be optimized to help improve image SEO on your site.   Let’s walk through some of the best practices for optimizing images on your website to help you rank higher in organic search.   Improve Image SEO with Tools Since having images is crucial to image SEO, finding and […]

There’s hidden revenue potential in your existing customer base, and you can upsell using CRM data to find it.   Welcome to the art of upselling techniques: upselling is a way of encouraging existing, happy customers to spend more with you. On average, anywhere between 70 to 95% of revenue generated at B2B companies in a given year comes from upsells and renewals. For ecommerce and B2C companies, there’s a 30% chance a customer will make a second purchase, and a 50% chance that customer will make a third purchase. […]

Call it customer retention, customer loyalty, or brand affinity: what we’re really after as marketers boils down to one word, and that word is love. There’s nothing so powerful in marketing as the love of a customer, but fostering that kind of love takes patience, time, and maybe a little automation.   How to Build and Promote a Customer Loyalty Program Using a Marketing Automation Platform Your marketing automation platform isn’t just a lead nurture platform. If you want to improve customer loyalty, you can apply the same principles and […]

What Gets Measured Gets Managed – A FREE Content Calendar For SEO and Social Media   Peter Drucker was a legendary business thinker. If you’ve never read any of his books on business and management, you should (at the very least) memorize his most famous words. What gets measured, gets managed. It’s not rocket science, it’s pure common sense. At past companies, I felt like Marketing Departments worked in silos, which doesn’t help year-end goals. You have the Search Team over here working on X, Social Media is working on […]

Like it or not, the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is coming very soon. The legislation is designed to put control into the hands of consumers regarding how their personally identifiable information (PII) is obtained, used and shared. Most would agree that giving consumers control is the right thing to do. It does, however, present some significant challenges for businesses, including non-EU based companies, who do business with or market to individuals who are part of the EU.   GDPR consumer advantages:   Increased security. Companies are required […]

Voiced by Amazon Polly Are you subscribed to a regular or daily roundup email of some kind? Office Snapshots has been a favorite of mine since before we moved offices, for example.   One of our clients, YRC Worldwide, is a North American authority on shipping and is in the position to lead awareness of news coverage and recent industry developments. They started a daily news briefing email and it took off. The only problem was that the emails were cumbersome to build.   Extending the marketing stack with a […]

Understanding the relationship between ecommerce and social media is essential when it comes to building your brand, connecting with your target audience, and launching a social media strategy for ecommerce sales. As digital marketers, it is our jobs to stay on top of the latest best practices and industry trends. But let’s be honest, there is not enough time in the day to keep up with the ever-changing world of digital marketing. Which is why I’m here to help you out!   How to Build a Social Media Strategy for […]

If you’re talking about a CRM system, love isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind. It’s not uncommon for CRM to be a source of conflict for sales and marketing teams, and I’ve heard members of both teams question why we spend so much time worrying about our CRM systems.   In an ideal world, Marketing deserves at least a 50% stake in every organization’s CRM system. It’s our source of truth—it’s where everything we need to create a custom experience for our prospects lives. We deserve a […]

Take a trip to a local business and you’re likely to see wheelchair ramps, Braille buttons, automatic doors, and other ease-of-access modifications designed to provide equal access to persons with disabilities—these are the physical accommodations that most businesses and nonprofit service providers must legally make to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). But did you know that the same businesses required to make physical accommodations for persons with disabilities are also required to make accommodations on their websites?   Not sure if your website is ADA compliant? Learn […]

If your retail email ROI isn’t generating the highest return of your marketing budget, you might want to take a second look at your strategies. That’s because across all industries, email ROI can be as high as 3,800% (according to the Direct Marketing Association). For retailers who have limited ways to connect with customers, that rate of return is a good goal to set.   A recent report from market intelligence firm Retail Systems Research suggests that even retailers who are good at email could be doing more to improve […]

An engaged alumni base can help higher education marketers tap into a network of advocates that can refer future students, share stories about their experiences, and fundraise for future initiatives they care about. But first, you’ll have to create an alumni relations experience that’s worth engaging with.   How to Use an Alumni Email Series to Engage Post Graduates If you want to truly engage your alumni base with email, you’ll need to ditch the batch-and-blast approach. We’ve pulled together six of the best alumni email series campaigns that can […]

As is customary for many people around this time (okay, maybe I’m a little late), it’s time to make some predictions on the biggest trends I believe will dominate 2018 SEO trends discussions in the coming year. As everyone knows, mastering the Google Dance is not easy…they keep changing the steps to keep us on our toes. Nonetheless, we’ve wrapped up the seven trends we think will come into play this year.   Mobile First Index – Go Beyond Responsive On November 4th, 2016 Google began “testing” its mobile-first index. […]

Congratulations, email marketers! We made it through the final two months of 2017, that magic time of year when the average inbox sees a 50% increase in email traffic. Now that our inboxes are cleared of flash sales and holiday cards, it’s time to take a look at our Email Marketing Benchmarks 2017 Report for the second half of the year. (Missed Part One? Revisit it here).   If you’re new to the Email Marketing Benchmarks Report, this is our twice-yearly dive into the email marketing metrics compiled by our […]

Wondering how to optimize your Google Merchant Center Shopping Feed? As we move into a new year, most businesses are currently going over end of year reporting and planning Paid Search budgets for 2018. This is the boring stuff the VPs are sifting through while the fun is just beginning for your resident Google PPC Geeks who love presenting the facts and building out improvements to their Google Product Listing Ads. If you manage a Google Shopping Feed and utilize programs like BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify and a dozen other CMS […]

An effective newsletter is an extremely valuable marketing tool that can go a long way in educating and persuading your clients and prospects to work with you. They help keep your brand top-of-mind for consumers, establishing credibility and authority in the space and notifying readers of products and company news that may interest them.   So, maybe you’re new to the idea of sending newsletters, or maybe you’ve been sending newsletters for quite some time and realizing your audience isn’t very engaged. This is why sending out newsletters with the right elements is […]

I live for random holidays. Not only as a consumer, but also from a marketer standpoint. Who knew there was a National Cotton Candy Day? If you didn’t, it’s today. December 7th – you now have a valid justification to go find that sugary fluff that we classify as candy…you’re welcome.   While we have survived Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday, the popular shopping days don’t stop there. I’ve found a few more that you may be able to add into your Holiday Marketing Plan: Dec. 15th Free […]

If you’re wondering whether you’re working from a content strategy or simply doing content marketing, there are four important questions you can ask yourself to find out.   First, it’s important to understand that “doing” content marketing is not the same as “implementing” content strategy. Just to be clear, both activities are important, but content marketing without a strategy as foundation is really just the tactical implementation without the larger vehicle required to make sure those dollars and initiatives are being allocated most effectively.   In order to evaluate whether what […]

Ah, the holidays—the perfect time of year to cuddle up with an inbox full of offers from your favorite brands.   Thanks to email marketers, holiday shopping has become less stressful and the deals are just as good. This year alone, Black Friday online retail sales pulled in $5.03 billion, which is up almost 17% from last year’s online Black Friday sales. Online retail sales for the 2017 holiday shopping season are expected to break $100 billion.   For digital marketers, these numbers are nothing but good news. The only […]

What is schema markup? Schema markup is structured data coding, recognized by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex, added to an individual webpage which gives those search engines additional context to the content of the page.   Basically, schema helps remove some of the guesswork for search engines.   Here is a use for schema example Take the word crane for example. Katy has a webpage to sell her crane.   Is she selling a bird classified as Aves? I totally didn’t have to Wikipedia that. Did you know cranes usually […]

In August, Facebook became the latest big name to jump into the original video content category with its new Watch tab. Content, which is produced for Facebook by partners, earns Facebook 45% of ad break revenue (partners get to keep the additional 55%). It’s a move designed to keep more eyeballs on Facebook for longer, which is to say more data—and opportunities—to sell to advertisers. We asked Jr. Account Coordinator Jesse Eiskina to share her rundown of the new feature and what marketers should expect.   If you haven’t noticed […]