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 […]

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 […]

You’ve put together a solid review strategy to improve local SEO and build your online reputation, and now you’re seeing a few subpar reviews come in – don’t panic.   A few negative reviews are inevitable. According to research from TrustPilot, venting frustrations is among the top motivations for writing online reviews. People want to share a notably good or bad experience to feel empowered or help others make a better buying decision. Instead of feeling disappointment or frustration when a negative review comes in, try to see value in […]

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, […]

So you’ve gotten your five HIPAA rules under control and your marketing budget is at least 10% of your company’s overall budget. Now you are ready to embark into the healthcare digital marketing world, but don’t know which digital strategy to implement.     Let’s look at the five ways you can uplevel your digital marketing strategy for healthcare to help you generate more traffic and stay competitive in the healthcare industry.     Have an Easy-to-Navigate Website While Staying Mobile Conscience Although many people still use desktops, the majority […]

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 […]

Switching Banks is Hard. Luckily, it’s not impossible.   Switching. Banks. Is. Hard. Like – getting-a-toddler-to-sit-still, opening-a-pickle-jar-on-your-91st-birthday, changing-political-views-on-social-media hard. Yet as financial institutions, we all want to achieve that brass ring, to become their primary financial institution – with all the loan and share balances that come with that relationship.   So let’s take the hard and make it eas…OK. OK. Let’s take the hard and make it less hard.   It’s gonna take more than a banner ad Helping a potential customer switch to your place won’t happen with […]

Imagine being part of a team that includes a designer, copywriter, developer, and marketer. They are all working together harmoniously on an email campaign, each contributing to it from their area of expertise, resulting in a perfectly crafted email that is great looking, well written, and renders correctly in every inbox. You are all together when the send button is pressed, and you look on as your beautiful emails are released like doves into the sky.   The unfortunate reality is that’s almost never the case. It’s you, the marketer […]

Let’s start by covering the basics – what is a survey? A survey is defined as a research method used for collecting data from a pre-defined group of respondents to gain information and insights on various topics of interests. That’s just a long-winded way of saying that surveys can be used to collect data. And as marketers, we LOVE data! The more data we have, the more targeted we can make our messaging to specific audience segments.   When to Use Surveys in your Marketing Campaign There are so many […]

If you’ve heard my position on CRM systems before, it should come as no surprise that I firmly believe marketers should have at least a 50% stake in every CRM system—and perhaps more so if you’re a B2B marketer. CRM systems are one of the most valuable repositories of data for marketers, and understanding how they work—as well as how they might work better—can help you refine your targeting strategy, improve your budget projections, prove out your ROI on marketing spend, and help you make marketing decisions based on data […]

Our KPIs are better than yours. I believe that most of the time this statement is true (although there are the occasional times where I run across someone with some really kick-ass KPIs and strategies). I believe that our KPIs are better because this is an emphasis of how we do business for ourselves and for our clients. We take it so seriously we brought in a Customer Success Director to make sure we are tracking toward KPIs that indicate success.   What Are KPIs (In Marketing)? KPIs, or key […]

Featuring an average open rate that can be eight times higher and an audience that requires a broad opt-in policy, it’s no wonder that transactional emails have sparked your curiosity. You’re probably here because you’re looking for transactional email best practices—the rules on what you can—and can’t—do in a transactional email, and you’ve come to the right place.   Let’s dig in:   What Is a Transactional Email? Let’s start with the groundwork. If you haven’t read Dave Cacioppo’s post on The Art of the Transactional Email yet, click on […]

There are certainly some industries ripe to produce the razzle dazzle social media content that we love to see in our newsfeeds—the beautiful models, game-winning statistics, new movie releases, breaking news headlines. While you might think the inspiration for content may come easier in a fast-paced, highly visible, large corporation or adorable, mission-based nonprofit, it doesn’t mean social media can’t be an effective player in your marketing line-up.   Let me start off by saying “boring” is a completely subjective judgement. There is no such business that will appeal to […]

Improving website accessibility can seem like a never-ending and always-challenging process. Mostly because, it is. It’s the collision of two complex worlds – legislation and web development – coupled with the realities of people with disabilities, which can be misunderstood unless you know first-hand what it’s like to live with a disability. The content on your website is also frequently changing, so it’s not a one-time optimization project. That’s where website accessibility statements can come in handy.   Before we dive in, if you need an overview on website accessibility, […]

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 […]

emfluence rounded up another year of marketing success at the 2019 Fountain Awards on March 7th at the 2016 Main Event Space. The Fountain Awards, which are co-hosted by the ANA Business Marketing Association of Kansas City and the Kansas City Chapter of the American Marketing Association, feature results-oriented marketing work from agencies and brands across the greater Kansas City metro.   Featuring categories honoring work for both B2B and B2C oriented brands, The Fountain Awards gathers entries from dozens of marketers, all of whom are competing for the clout […]

The digital landscape for how you market your business and connect with customers at a local level is extremely important. As more local businesses create a stronger presence leveraging local search, reviews, and social media connections, it can become a more challenging task for businesses with multiple locations to manage. In order to compete with smaller businesses in all of your locations, you will need to create a concentrated and efficient local social media strategy.     Why is Localized Social Marketing So Important for Multi-Location Brands? In their latest […]

In some significant news out of the Ads wing of Google HQ last week, it was announced that Google Ads will be sunsetting the Average Position metric. If you’re surprised (like I was) you can relax for now – the change isn’t coming until September. Surprised as I was, upon reflection the change makes a lot of sense. Below I’ll explain the “why” behind the move, as well as metrics to pay attention to moving forward.   Why Did Google Ads Get Rid of Average Position? From my first day […]

“If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s use mine,” former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale emfluence partners with our customers on a breadth of digital marketing initiatives, from website development and SEO to email strategy and delivery. In every engagement, we encourage customers to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). In Business to Business marketing, with longer, complex sales cycles, the right KPIs provide early indications of success and can raise early alerts that it’s time to recalibrate the marketing if a campaign appears […]

If you work in higher education marketing and your job requires any of the following: new student recruitment current student interactions graduate student communications   Then I am writing this blog post just for you (but wait – if you don’t work in higher education and your job doesn’t require any of the above, you’ll probably still get some great ideas from the rest of this blog. Stick around!).   We’re about to dive into the world of influencer marketing and how you can integrate this tactic into your own […]