In the last few weeks, companies everywhere have had to make important decisions on how to adapt their marketing strategies to the rapidly changing circumstances surrounding COVID-19. Email, in particular, has been heavily relied on to communicate a lot of information with customers and clients. It’s important to note that in many situations, not sending at all is better than coming across as insensitive or tone deaf during a global health pandemic. However, in the event you have important information you must relay to your clients during this time, here […]

Writing this from my home in Prairie Village (Kansas) rather than the emfluence office in the Crossroads (Kansas City, Missouri), I can only muse that the old saying “the only constant in life is change” seems like a huge understatement. COVID-19 has certainly upended all of our lives, especially those in the service, healthcare, & hospitality industries. I’m left to reflect on how this crisis is affecting the Paid Media landscape, not because it’s the most important aspect of our lives, but because sometimes it’s good to focus on what […]

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 […]

B2B purchase decisions are typically high value and expensive decisions. These decisions develop over a longer period of time than B2C and require relevant and timely content. The average B2B buying cycle is 6-12 months (Powerpost).   So, what happens during this buying cycle and how can you guide it along? The answer – relevant, timely, targeted and personalized content.   In a study by FocusVision, they discovered the average B2B buyer consumes 13 pieces of content before making a decision, typically eight vendor-created and five third-party created. Vendor-created content […]

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, […]

emfluence is excited to welcome two new members to the team this month!   Jana Hainey joins us as an email strategist, where she will work hands-on with our agency clients providing email strategy, inspiration, and execution.   Cory LaGrange joins us as our Director of Digital Strategy, bringing with him a love for SMART goals, more than 10 years of marketing strategy, and just a smidgen of an accent from his home turf in South Louisiana.   As Jana and Cory wrapped up their first few weeks as emfluencers, […]

The core component of running a successful website in this day and age can be succinctly summarized in one word: content. This should come as no surprise to most of us, I mean who hasn’t heard the cliché “content is king” before? Now, I don’t mean to suggest this statement is untrue–I’d actually argue that it’s as true as it’s ever been–just that this emphasis on content can very easily evolve into an overemphasis on content, which can in turn overshadow other essential parts of a managing your site.   […]

As marketers, we are all aware that there are restrictions when it comes to the types of content you can post and advertise on social media. However, it’s important to note that different social media platforms have different advertising restrictions and guidelines. So before you start posting content across all of your social media platforms, it is important to be familiar with all of the platforms guidelines because what is acceptable on one platform may not be allowed on another. Let’s take a look at some of the most prominent […]

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 […]