Thinking about changing your WordPress site design? Here is what you need to know

There’s a reason why certain brands revamp their image, and some have done so successfully. There are different factors that usher in the change, but much of it is done for improved positioning to better appeal to their target audience. They want to reestablish their position in the market and re-engage those who have slipped through their fingers. By refreshing their public image while staying true to their core principles, brands can get a second lease at life in a very competitive market. The same can be said for WordPress site owners looking to improve their website design to appeal to their audiences. Due to the volatile nature of online marketing, there is more cause for site owners to need to re-design their site. Regular search algorithm changes require everyone make tweaks to their sites so they don't…

Chart of the Day: After all your hard work creating your email, do you know if it arrived at its correct destination?

Firstly, let's make sure we know exactly what deliverability is. If our marketing email arrives in the subscribers' inbox, that is a successful delivery. However many things could affect our emails deliverability, like Internet Service Providers (ISPs), bounces, spam issues to name a few. In today's chart, the question asked, "How do you monitor and improve deliverability?" It is good to see that the majority do monitor it in some form. 37% test messages for the spam score and optimize before sending. Although still, 28% say they do nothing. You need to monitor your deliverability. For example, if you are having high bounce rates, it could mean your domain is on a blacklist somewhere. And ISPs take notice of reputable blacklists like SpamCop. With deliverability, you don't want to be complacent.…

5 Ways to Increase Your Conversion Rates with Micro-Influencers

Does size really matter? When it comes to influencer marketing it does, but not in the way you think. Influencers with a smaller following tend to have a much bigger impact on conversions. They’re called micro-influencers. And although they have fewer followers than top influencers and celebrities, their reach extends to a highly-relevant, targeted audience that is more likely to buy your product. In this post, you’ll learn all about micro-influencers, and how you can work with them to boost your conversions.

A Closer Look at Micro-Influencers

Micro-influencers, as their name suggests, are influencers who have a relatively small following compared to other influencers. There is no exact number of followers to define these influencers, but some general qualities can be outlined. According to Mavrck, they are “everyday consumers” with a following size of 500-5,000 people. Based on this definition, micro-influencers are like regular people, just…

How to bridge the advanced analytics knowledge gap

Today's marketing industry is becoming more metrics-driven by the day. If you're a marketer setting up a digital marketing campaign, one of your first major steps involves building a solid marketing strategy (see our toolkit that helps you do this), while becoming familiar with Google Analytics is a typical next step (see our GA toolkit). But once you get your web strategy going and feel more comfortable with Google Analytics, you might notice that your day-to-day work demands a deeper understanding of user intentions, preferences, and usage patterns. You might begin to ask questions about your users that are more difficult to answer, such as which paths users take on your website, how to do advanced segmentation, how to correlate data outside of Google Analytics, and so on. Marketers today are awash in customer data.  Knowing what an individual consumer is doing where…

Practical customer retention tactics that any business can apply

For any digital marketing strategy or digital communications plan, defining a set of objectives and clear strategy behind your plan is essential to the success. This post focuses on creating an actionable online customer retention plan, which by definition is maintaining or growing your existing customer base loyal to your product offering. Retention should be at the heart of your digital strategy in maintaining and building communication with your existing customer base. Separate to this post, I’ve also created an outline covering techniques for creating a digital marketing strategy for acquisition. So, where to start? I advise the same place as for all marketing plans! Know your audience Before embarking on your retention strategy, understanding your audience is a key requirement to ensure the chosen retention tactics are in line with your existing customer base – so begin to build up a profile of the type of customer/s that…

Chart of the day: Content marketers are changing the social metrics they use to judge their content

Social Media Matrics, such as Facebook shares, video shares and retweets on Facebook are becoming increasingly important for measuring content marketing success. Recent research by Newswhip found that there are some social metrics which are becoming less important, such as Facebook likes and Instagram likes. The research shows that shares are overall becoming much more important than light-touch interaction, such as "likes". Marketers value shares far higher and measure the success of their content on such metrics as they represent more important engagement and reach. In the same study, they found that a lack of people resources and financial resources (lack of budget) are the biggest barriers to social content distribution. Source: Newswhip  Sample: 250 publishing, PR and Marketing professionals …

What are the hottest new design trends emerging this year?

When you take a look backwards at design trends from recent years and compare them with those that are just now emerging, you can get a great feel for the way that user needs grow and change. It is the job of design to meet users where they need it. 

Over the past few years, the digital landscape has been filled with Flat Design and responsive, drag-and-drop web templates. The rise of Flat Design was hardly a surprise given that its minimalist appeal is super-easy to replicate and personalize. Flat Design was a simple and adaptable design innovation that really embraced the medium of the screen. In doing so, it created new expectations for the harmony of usability and aesthetics. 

But now that we're a few years past the heyday of Flat Design, we're starting to…

Up your slack game with these time-saving tools

What better way to boost marketing and sales productivity than using a productivity tool? Slack now has over 4 million users, and many marketing and sales tools have used that opportunity to reach more users by building integrations. The good news for marketers and sales personnel is that you can now get more work done without having to leave your Slack channels. This article summarises what you can do with these 10 great Slack integrations.

GrowthBot

I’m beginning with GrowthBot because it is a severely underestimated chat based marketing tool that can help you with content ideas, keyword research and monitoring your competition. Once you have integrated the tool, you simply have to say “Hello” to have it suggest a dozen or so questions that you can then use as queries. Some interesting questions are “What…

Why a focus on the fundamentals of customer retention is essential to business growth

Many marketers are grappling with the challenges posed by fundamental changes in consumer behaviours, increasingly competitive markets and a host of digital technology developments, mobile innovations and social media proliferation. The good news is that marketers are far better placed to operate in this brave new world than they may think! The fundamentals of customers, brands and marketing have not changed. However, customers are still the most important asset of any business, so in my view, the number one priority for marketing  to acquire and retain customers by creating a compelling value proposition and brand story that resonates with customers.

There is a danger if there is too great a focus on customer acquisition, then businesses spend too insufficient time on managing customer retention. Instead the balance is wrong and they focus too much on acquisition using paid, owned and earned media and insufficient time…

The 7 elements you need for superior retention automation

It costs a lot to acquire a new customer, but most clients will make a single purchase and leave. A repeating purchase, on the other hand, costs far less than acquiring a new customer, estimated at between 4 and 7 times less actually. Retention automation has a simple, well-known theory that deals with this issue. Retention automation aims to get better ROI by turning one-time buyers into repeat customers and keeping them, rather than focusing on acquiring additional new customers. Retention automation can be done with the basic understanding that customers are different, then analyzing them as groups, connecting them to automated campaigns designed to move them in the right direction. There are plenty of examples that demonstrate programs and multichannel campaigns addressing customer retention according to the customer’s current lifecycle situation and their importance to the business. Surprisingly, although the theory is so…