Chart of the Day: What makes you choose your marketing automation platform?

There is so much choice with marketing automation platforms now, with nearly every Email Service Provider (ESP) adding them to their grades. But what are others choosing their platforms for? Marketing Automation platforms aren't cheap, even the ones that are rather simplistic. So these are expensive investments, but what would drive a business to choose one platform over another? In the chart below we can see that the most important reason why a business goes with a specific marketing automation platform. 54% said that it was the ease of implementation. Now, I have implemented a fair few marketing automation platforms and ESPs, and yes they are a ball ache and can take a lot of time and planning. But is this really a fair reason to go with a specific platform and spend all that money? Just because it's easy? I…

75% of your email list is inactive and therefore useless. You need to win them back.

Reactivation is aimed at attempting to reintroduce lapsed subscribers to your content and re-engaging their interest in your brand, most commonly by creating a specific strategy and utilising specific content that aims to bring people back into your pool of active customers. There are many elements and variables involved in the process of creating an email marketing reactivation strategy, but every brand that uses email marketing as part of their digital marketing strategy should look to build in an email reactivation strategy, as its potential to create impact for brands in any sector, should not be underestimated.

Why focus on reactivation and re-engagement?

75% of your email subscriber list may be inactive. This is a worrying statistic, as it means that three quarters of your subscriber base may not currently be engaging with your marketing content. Many of…

How influencer and affiliate marketing can work in tandem to win you more loyal customers

In life and in marketing, it’s always tempting to create dichotomies: those who like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain and those who don’t, for example. But times have changed, and technology has fundamentally transformed how we consume information and make decisions. Even Jimmy Buffett isn’t taking out personal ads in the newspaper anymore, just as consumers are no longer waiting for brands to give them the information they want. Instead, people have access to instant information at the click of a button. Through social media, they can also post to large followings, whip up their own movements, and educate themselves — all before reaching out to brands. These changes mean marketers need to constantly think about how to engage and connect with consumers. Plus, they need to avoid false dichotomies when it comes to prioritizing who can…

Chart of the day: Poor quality data is the reason for bad digital marketing campaign planning

Over 4 in 10 (43%) respondents to a survey by ExchangeWire Research and Xaxis said lack of quality data was the main reason for not using audience data when campaign planning for digital media. Time was also a major obstacle, whilst small data sets, narrowing campaign audience too much and a lack of there being a central data repository were all big factors. Marketers are finding that too much targeting is narrowing the audience down too much. Privacy concerns were not a major issue when it comes to data use for digital campaigns. Source: ExchangeWire Research/ Xaxis Sample: 616 digital marketing professionals across Europe; data collected from November 2016 to January 2017 Recommended Resource: Marketing Campaign Planning Toolkit …

Adblockers are here to stay. Marketers need to wake up to a new era

Sixty-three percent of users ages 18 to 34 are using ad-blocking software when viewing digital content, and 41 percent of internet users overall block ads. Just last year, PageFair published a report on ad-block rates that provided unprecedented insight into how many users utilize ad-blocking software when they browse the web. For example, ad blocking cost publishers around $22 billion during 2015, and U.S. ad blocking grew by 48 percent to a staggering 45 million active users as of June that same year. This widespread usage of ad-blocking methods has created a demographic that marketers can’t reach with traditional digital marketing strategies. Especially because advertising is the way content on the web is financially supported, ad blocking can have a negative effect on marketing efforts. “Many of the most popular tools marketers use to measure and…

Ensure the names you create for your podcasts, ebooks, products…and just about anything else don’t impede your marketing success

Savvy Digital Marketers know that names (business names, blog names, podcast names, online group names) have concrete marketing consequences. The marginal effect of a bad name across key marketing goals like attracting eyeballs, encouraging buzz, facilitating word-of-mouth, and increasing top of mind awareness (TOMA) is real. If you don’t think that an awesome name that’s easy to say, spell, and remember can increase your referral rate by 3-5%, then you don’t really understand the human mind. Check out these five insights on picking the right name for your website, online brand, mobile app, e-book or anything else shared by the team at naming platform Squadhelp.com:

1. Evocative names are most highly regarded

Online naming resources recommend catchy, unique, short and appealing names. Great advice - yet after helping nearly 8000 individuals find winning names, experts…

How Marketers can use Google Zero Moment of Truth model

I first had the idea for this blog 2 years ago. Man oh man, take a second to consider how the landscape has changed over the past 3 years… Every other business is an app start-up, Vine withered and died, the leader of the free world uses Twitter to start wars and robots are taking over the feckin’ world.

Yet still, there are plenty of marketers who don’t know about Google’s ZMOT and one thing still remains true: one of the biggest challenges facing marketers today is how to keep up with their customers.

With the above in mind, I thought it was worth refreshing and reposting this blog for those marketers who are still trying to find that sweet-spot between permission-based content marketing and driving conversion online.

…

Have you thought of these 4 elements for your business website?

The internet has precipitated sweeping changes across cultures and redefined how we socialize, communicate, learn and most importantly, how we do business. With the number of people accessing the internet on a daily basis ever increasing, the need for any business to have an online presence has never been greater. If you are in the process of setting up a website for your business, there are several factors that you should mull over. Here are a few to get you started.

Domain Name

Choosing a domain name may seem straightforward but it can be more complicated than you realize.  Millions of domain name have already been registered and there is every chance that the name of your choice name is on that list. If it’s taken, you may have to adjust it to avoid confusion and potential lawsuits. As you do this,…

Chart of the Day: Facebook's revenue per user increase 10 fold in 5 years

Facebook's drive to monetize itself has seen the social media titan raise its revenue per user from $2 to $19 in just 5 years. In this time Facebook has released many different advertising options for marketers to spend their budgets with. In the early days, we were using the advanced for the time demographic and 'likes' targeting options to serve ads via the news feed & the right-hand side area. But with the introduction more advertising features as well as adding Instagram to the mix, I can only see the gap between TV and Facebook becoming smaller and smaller. Now there are a wide range of ad options for Facebook. Which are: Retargeting - art of advertising to people who have visited your website before Messages - Contacting your audience with short messages on…

Your influencers need to be able to effectively represent your brand

Influencer marketing is more than a passing craze for brands. According to a recent eMarketer survey, 84 percent of marketers said they have an influencer campaign in the works that would launch within a year. When utilized correctly, influencers can help companies achieve immense returns without heavy startup investments. For every dollar companies spend on influencer marketing, they see $6.50 in revenue, according to another recent poll conducted by Tomoson. That doesn’t mean brands can simply throw money at an influencer, sit back, and watch the profits pile up, though. To execute a successful influencer marketing strategy, you have to understand how to identify effective influencers and make the most of their talents.

What Makes a Good Influencer?

When brands think about partnering with influencers, they usually think about macro influencers — big celebrities with millions of followers — not those micro influencers who have 10,000…