While every marketer should have a clear goal in sight for every eventuality, there’s no marketing opportunity more significant than holiday marketing. So how will you set yourself up for success this holiday season? It’s time to think like Charles Dickens.     Holiday Marketing Plan Hear us out on this one. Ebenezer Scrooge, Dickens’ famous, festive anti-hero, provides the perfect role model for marketers looking to understand what a successful holiday season looks like. No, this doesn’t mean you need to be extra tight with your marketing budget or spend […]

The past few years have been a whirlwind for everyone, and marketing was no different. This was a time of endless adapting and pivoting in order to figure out how to navigate a sales journey in a COVID and semi post-COVID world. If there’s one thing that is for certain, it’s that consumer habits are continuing to change and it’s our job to keep up. One of the best ways to do so is to use previous holiday seasons to inform us of future strategies.    Holiday Marketing Plan: 2020 […]

Marketers seem to start talking about the holidays a little earlier every year. There is always a sense of urgency relating to the most lucrative sales period of the year. However, the 2022 season looks a little different.    The 2022 holiday season remains the most significant marketing opportunity of the year for many businesses. However, the global cost-of-living crisis and the ever-present hangover from the COVID-19 pandemic will considerably impact consumers’ buying habits and available budget to spend on gifting and celebrations.    The Holidays 2022 — Changing Consumer […]

There can be a lot of pressure and expectations when it comes to the holidays — not just for consumers looking to top off their year with a perfect bow, but also for companies who are in a mad dash to close out their quarters on a positive note and cater to the needs of their customers.     Social media has become critical during the holiday season not just for sharing news about your brand but also for creating a wonderland-like experience for customers that balances product or service […]

There are all sorts of search engines out there crawling your sites, assessing your content’s relevance, and ranking you on a search page. As such, we’re always doing our best to ensure we’re putting high-quality content out on the web and optimizing for everything from keywords to images to site speed.     So, if we’re already putting our A game out on show, how can Google Analytics play a role in our campaign strategy? An expert in any field is always open to feedback and knows that it’s the key […]

You don’t need to be a data scientist to understand the concept of zero-party data. According to Forrester Research, who coined the term, it’s essentially the information that your clients intentionally and proactively share with you. For example, this could be information relating to product interest or purchase intentions.     Zero-party data is created every time a customer clicks on an email or social media campaign, visits a website, engages in an online chat, or picks up the phone and calls your organization. Therefore, it is a valuable resource to […]

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” In this digital age, marketers really should have assigned this well-worn John Wannamaker quote to history. And yet, search marketers continue to hemorrhage cash from their paid search budgets because they don’t fully understand where their sales are coming from.    Attribution models should give you a clear understanding of how well your ads are performing and help you optimize your customers’ buying journey accordingly. However, they can be challenging to understand and […]

Social media is the ultimate channel for communication these days. In an age that’s dominated by packed schedules and juggling tasks, social media has become the quicker than quick way of absorbing and sharing information. Sure, we’re still using texts and even emails or phone calls to keep in touch with our social circle but how many of you are also chatting in your Instagram inbox, tagging friends on funny Facebook posts, doling out quick reactions through IG stories, or mentioning your friends in Twitter threads?    If you’re like […]

The mathematician and data science entrepreneur Clive Humby coined the phrase, “Data is the new oil,” but it took a marketer to really put that statement into a context we can all understand. Marketing expert, Michael Palmer, wrote in a blog expanding on Humby’s quote, “Data is just like crude. It’s valuable, but if unrefined, it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc., to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity; so must data be broken down, analyzed for it to have […]

Ten months ago, Apple rolled out its Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) update for users of its iOS15, iPadOS 15, and shortly after, macOS 12 Monterey operating systems. At the time, many panic-stricken marketing pundits described it as yet another email marketing extinction event (will they ever learn?). At emfluence, we preferred to position it as an evolutionary step in the ever-changing world of email marketing.     The email marketing experts at emfluence aren’t prone to panic. We’ve seen these “extinction events” before and know that email nearly always emerges […]

Every online search starts with a problem. Where can I find a hotel in London? How can I save money on my energy bills? Which marketing automation tools integrate with my CRM system?     As marketers, it’s our job to solve these problems and turn those search requests into leads and, ultimately, paying customers.    This process, in itself, creates more problems for the marketer.    How do I stand out from the competition in an increasingly crowded market? How do I keep my visitors engaged once they have landed […]

If you really break down how B2B and B2C marketing works, the end goal is the same. It seems like the marketing world these days tries to separate the two. Yes, there are distinctions like who’s involved with the purchase decision, but at the beginning and end of the sales funnel, you are still working to get someone interested enough to explore your brand and, ultimately, convert.    In that same breath, we should emphasize that social media marketing should be just as important to B2B marketers as it is […]

Next generation marketing channels have been taking over by storm. Millions listen to podcasts on a daily basis while video streams across all sorts of platforms are widely used for entertainment and information. Text messaging is becoming a popular way of communicating, and the best way to find new products to try? Just look to your favorite influencer for some recommendations.     These are strategies that are not only growing in popularity, but also shaping the way marketers hash out their campaigns. So, what does SEO have to do […]

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 […]

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 your social media campaigns lack engagement, it may be time to inject a little personality into your brand and invest in influencer marketing.    Influencer marketing can be defined as a strategy primarily played out on social media channels. It typically involves brand mentions, endorsements and product placement from individuals who have an expert level of knowledge or wide sphere of influence across their field of interest.    It would be a mistake to dismiss the potential of influencer marketing as something that is only of interest to Gen […]

What is Share of Search? Share of Search is an organic metric that allows a company to gauge their brand visibility in organic search and compare with other brands in the industry. It’s quick to calculate, based on the number of times the company’s name gets typed into the Google search bar.     This is a way to gain insights on how your brand is doing, especially in the early stages of the customer sales journey, letting you know how you match up to competitors and when you need to […]

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 […]

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 […]

Let’s go back to those marketing 101 courses that break down the details of how the world of selling works. There’s the traditional path for marketing (TV, radio, direct mail, etc.) and now, thanks to the internet, there is also a digital path (email, SMS, social media, etc.). And, as we’ve all seen, digital is quickly becoming the dominant form of marketing especially when it comes to social media advertising.     Social media is everywhere and has the potential to reach nearly everyone. Just take my 80 year old grandmother […]

If you are one of those marketers that rush to check their analytic reports after sending a campaign, you might be missing a trick. This is because the process of successfully analyzing your marketing activities starts long before a campaign is actually sent.    Before you should start looking at your analytics, you need some context. That context starts with an objective because without that objective, your reports are just a load of meaningless data.    We’ve talked a lot about the importance of setting objectives before on this blog. […]

The old proverb, a watched pot doesn’t boil, doesn’t quite translate into the world of paid search. Unless you keep a close eye on your paid search campaigns, there is a genuine chance that your PPC pot will boil over and potentially burn your house down.    OK, perhaps we’re exaggerating here a little bit, but when a medium is as powerful as paid search, it is worth watching.    With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility The fact is, nothing will convert faster than a well-placed paid search campaign. Conversely, […]

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 […]

The world of Facebook Ads revolves around a few distinct ideas—the first being your objective, the second being your ad format, and the third being your targeting options. While many can get these mixed up, understanding the purpose of each of these will help you understand how Facebook Ads work and how to sort through the many different types to create an effective engagement tool.    Facebook Ad Objectives The ad objectives refer to your goals as a business owner. There are 15 objectives that business owners can choose from […]

Dynamic content has been so seamlessly incorporated into our everyday lives that we don’t really notice it’s happening. In fact, we’re more likely to notice when something isn’t optimized for our personal lifestyle and needs. Why is that?     Marketers understand the power of personalization and technology has given us unique ways to keep up with the evolving expectations of consumers. Because of this, consumers come across all kinds of platforms that already have their browsing behaviors in mind and ready. Searching for the next show to binge? Netflix has […]

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 […]

Dynamic content offers marketers the opportunity to deliver highly targeted content based on a range of criteria, including client personas and user behavior. For marketers committed to delivering the right message to the right person at the right time, dynamic content is the “holy grail” of any content marketing strategy. However, as useful as dynamic content is, it doesn’t come without its problems.    One of the most frequently asked questions we hear about dynamic content from our clients is: How does Google rank dynamic content for SEO when that […]