Customer journey mapping can help to identify strengths and weaknesses with your sales, marketing, and customer support tactics so that you can improve the experience your customers have with your brand from the first interaction all the way through to the post-purchase journey.   The benefits of customer journey mapping are clear. However, the path to creating a customer journey map can be more onerous. Where do you start? Who do you involve? What does the final product need to look like?   There are various ways to create customer […]

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” […]

In November, Facebook rolled out a new way for SMBs to support local discovery and ecommerce in a tool you probably didn’t expect: WhatsApp.   Long known as a communication tool for your friends living overseas, WhatsApp has taken on a new face of late as users of the Facebook-owned app have taken to chatting with businesses as well. With the addition of the new tool, called Catalogs for Small Business, business owners can link their WhatsApp for Business account followers to photos and product information without having to share […]

It’s easy to get caught up in a dog and pony show for the next great piece of technology and the fabulous ROI that it promises. But building a solid martech stack is really about finding solutions that will help you execute on your strategy, not bending your strategy to a piece of software with shiny functionality. Strategy comes first. Technology supports strategy.   In fact, the most critical element to building a marketing tech stack isn’t marketing technology. It’s the people that the technology supports. You can spend money […]

Looking for your next social media advertising opportunity? You might be surprised at the power of Pinterest—and how you can leverage it to boost your brand.   Pinterest is the land of interest. It’s an online, visual paradise. Unlike social media platforms with visual support like Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is a search engine relying on images and video to capture the attention of its over 300 million monthly users.     Who is doing all this searching, and what are they searching?   Pinterest was once thought to be […]

It’s been a few weeks since Google began rolling out its latest major search algorithm update, BERT, and many members of the SEM community still have questions about what this change means for search engine optimization and content marketing. For good reason, too. The sheer amount of speculation and “expert” guides that were published just days after the update was announced have made separating algorithmic fact from fiction difficult.   Thankfully, we’ve done most of the heavy lifting for you and put together a no-nonsense guide breaking down the key […]

Crafting the perfect email for your campaign can be tough. Great results depend on coming up with the right words to say, what to offer, how much content to include, etc. You could take your best guess, or you could let your audience decide!

emfluence is excited to welcome LaToya Rozof to the role of HR Manager! In her role, LaToya will oversee employee engagement, hiring, and in her own words, making sure we continue to have fun without breaking any laws.   LaToya joins us as an HR superstar with a passion for fashion. She has 13 years of HR experience and has expertise in employment law, employee relations, and HR strategy. One of her favorite work tasks is finding ways to help make the workplace a destination and not a dread (a […]

Video is king…. or at least queen. If you haven’t started incorporating videos into your social media strategy already, now may be a good time to start thinking about it more seriously. According to SocialMediaToday, video is the best performing digital content type. Which honestly shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone at this point.   Let’s just quickly talk about how huge video content consumption is among consumers really quick.   78% of people watch online videos every week 55% watch online videos every day   Those are some […]

How much do you need for marketing next year? Depends. How many customers do you want?   Budgets. Such an ugly word. So… constricting. There are multiple approaches to budget-building, but most are variations of either the top-down or bottom-up approach. As you begin your 2020 marketing plans, let’s talk about the differences, benefits, and downfalls of the two most common ways to budget for your marketing expenses.   When Should We Start at the Top? The Top-Down Marketing Budget. In a top-down budgeting model, an executive team reviews data […]

Looking for a way to easily and effectively communicate with your prospects and clients? Email is the perfect channel for the job!   When used correctly, email can serve as a valuable relationship-building tool for every step of your customer journey. In the buying process, email is the third most influential source of information for buyers, listed only behind direct referrals and influencer advice, and with an estimated 122% ROI on total spend, email drives an ROI that’s four times higher than other marketing formats. Tack onto that that 47% […]

Let’s face it, you will not be the only skeptic reading this post.   Knowing that when it comes to multi-touch B2B marketing efforts – where some industries are faced with months-long sales cycles – finding your spot in a social platform designed for consumers may seem like a waste of media spend dollars.   But like a true marketer, you will continue reading to find out that social media is no longer a B2C-only playground and that it’s time for these business-to-consumer marketers to step aside and share the wealth with […]

It’s Tuesday morning. You’re in the heart of the B2B Sales pit. No, you ARE the heart of the B2B Sales pit. You’re half a cup of coffee in and reviewing your pipeline when a HOT lead comes in from Marketing. Marketing assures you that this lead is qualified. They are excited. Practically bouncing on their toes excited. So excited in fact that after emailing you the information they are standing at your desk checking to see if you got their email. They also sent you a message on Slack. […]

No matter how long you’ve been doing this, it can happen: your Paid Media can get stagnant. It’s happened to me. The Search campaigns are humming along but not necessarily growing. You’ve found every relevant search query under the sun, and your negative keyword list is tight enough to keep most bad searches out. You’re tweaking your audiences, demographics, and ad scheduling to make sure performance maintains despite additional competition and Google’s ever rising Cost Per Click (oh so that’s how their stock price keeps going up). You’re dipping a […]

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 […]

If you’re basing your marketing successes on the number of likes your social posts receive, it’s long past time to rethink how you’re measuring success on social media.   In a recent update, a spokesperson from Facebook confirmed that the company is considering removing “Like” counts from posts on the social media platform. And Facebook isn’t the first—Instagram has been experimenting with a hidden Like count in seven countries (not yet in the U.S.) and even more recently, YouTube announced plans to phase out the exact number of public-facing subscribers […]

If you’re looking for a way to truly understand how your customers are feeling about their experience with your brand, it could be time to consider adding a customer satisfaction survey to your marketing mix.   Be warned, however, that not all customer satisfaction surveys are alike. Unless you’re familiar with surveys – the audience, the timing, the purpose – it’s easy to use the terms Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) interchangeably, and it’s quite possible that you’ve never engaged with a Customer Effort Score (CES) survey. […]

Does your site have a history of revisions like adding, removing, or editing pages or updates to the site architecture or menu structure? Or did a site migration go poorly? Check out our SEO site migration checklist here. Chances are you have a lot of old URLs that were never redirected to the latest live URL. If a URL is updated or removed, you want to make sure you always 301 redirect users and search engine crawlers to the new URL or the most relevant, live location. What are 301 […]

That’s right, you read the title of this… it’s time to start planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (referred to as BF/CM in this blog). Believe it or not, we have indeed reached that point of the year where BF/CM marketing campaign plans should be getting finalized. However, if you haven’t started on your strategy or don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place. Here is a guide on what you should be thinking about in order to get you setup for success this 2019 BF/CM […]

Still using standard, static header images in your emails? You’re allowed to have more fun than that.   In email marketing, personalization is one of the keys to a successful engagement strategy. Often when we talk about personalization, we’re talking about: Content personalization—variables that insert text based on the recipient’s profile (think “first name” or “company.”) Timing personalization—you could think of this as segmentation as well. In short, the recipient receives an email based on an action (or inaction) they have taken. Preference personalization—this could be referred to as your […]

What if your ads could literally stand out? What if your ads stand out so well, they appeared to be touchable as if you could physically interact? Insert 3D ads. These ads help bring an image to life and offer an interactive experience to consumers.   3D ads consist of an interactive 3D model embedded into a banner ad. These ads allow consumers to view and interact with a product from multiple angles in extreme detail. Let’s say you’re selling a pair of tennis shoes. The shoes would appear as […]

Email marketing and search engine marketing are the top channels for driving highly qualified traffic to your website, and they are excellent ways for prospects to easily engage with and consume your content. Both SEO and email marketing are highly dependent upon a content strategy that focuses on relevance and quality. If you are not offering highly relevant and high-quality content, email subscribers will lose interest and search engines will stop giving you the credit you deserve.   There are a lot of synergies between your email marketing strategy and […]

Move over, B2C. Ecommerce isn’t just for you anymore. B2B ecommerce sales through online marketplaces and websites are on the rise, growing 11% in the last year, and surpassing $1 trillion in sales.  Not only is it important for business-to-consumer brands to have an ecommerce function to keep up with the demand these days, but with 74% of buyers doing research online before making a purchase, it’s becoming increasingly more important for business-to-business brands to follow suit. In this digital age, everyone wants the convenience of popping onto a website, […]

A little more than a year ago, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect. As most of you know, GDPR lays out a set of rules designed to protect personal data and privacy for citizens of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). Under the rules, any organization operating within the EU must adhere to strict conditions when collecting personal data, and must also protect that data from theft, exploitation, and abuse. Organizations must also track all data breaches and report these to […]

Email isn’t dead and it’s far from being dethroned as the most effective tactic for marketers. Despite social media being the newer, shinier tool for marketing, which may seem like the best way to build your brand awareness and capture new leads, convincing your social media followers to volunteer their email addresses is still the best way to own your audience.   How powerful would it be if both tools were integrated to work towards your overall marketing strategy? With both channels using different tactics, you can extend the reach […]

Do you market to consumers in California? You probably need to get to know CCPA. Even if you don’t, the new law could be the model for others states to quickly follow suit. Forbes is calling the measure “a wake-up call for everybody in tech.”   The California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA), which takes effect in 2020, is the strongest privacy legislation in the United States. The California law protects the consumer privacy of California residents and affects every major corporation who collects data on California citizens. In its current […]

Who still uses Bing these days? We do!   We’re pleased to announce that emfluence has been invited to join the Microsoft Advertising Partners Program! Over the last six months, we’ve been prioritizing training and certification for our team, as well as ramping up our efforts on Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads). Results have followed, as we’ve been able to allocate budget from Google to Microsoft for most of our clients.   Tactically speaking, moving accounts to Microsoft Ads is easy – it connects directly with Google Ads to import […]