Reworking your acquisition plan, beginning with your subscribe forms, will help you do a better job of connecting with customers and launching email conversations

We've been hearing many conflicting stories about how well EU marketers are preparing to handle all the many changes that GDPR will bring to their acquisition. So, we decided to see for ourselves. Now the verdict is in: Some retailers will be ready to go on May 25, when GDPR goes into full effect. Some need to do a little tweaking. The rest? They'd better read our report: Preparing for GDPR - The State of Retail Email Subscribe Forms, which is applicable to all sectors, to see what they must do now to update their practices. But doing this work does have a major upside: Reworking your acquisition plan, beginning with your subscribe forms, will help you do a better job of connecting with customers and launching email…

Don't fall short of these common search marketing mistakes

It seems almost too easy at first. It really does. You find a keyword tool and you type in whatever search term that comes to mind. Voilà! Like magic, you find out how many people are searching for your keyword, as well as a whole slew of other useful statistics like the keyword’s average cost per click, competition, suggested bid, and other data – depending on which keyword tool you’re using. However, before you get too ahead of yourself and pick a keyword to target, know that there is more to keyword planning than meets the eye. There are a lot of nuanced factors you might not have accounted for that can entirely change your keyword strategy. To make sure you get it right from the get-go, here are ten common mistakes that you’ll want to steer clear of.

1. Not realizing that Google…

If art is beauty, is science the beast?

 

Many corporations think so, judging from the way they silo their marketing and technology teams. Rarely do CMOs and CDOs bring the brains of both teams to bear on the company's marketing.

 

In an era when 38% of marketing professionals admit to underutilizing data for content strategy, companies that don't marry art and science struggle to snag smarter audiences with shorter attention spans.

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Should you be using omnichannel marketing to boost customer experience?

It has now become vital for brands to inject their unique voice in every communications channel that they make use of, be consistent with pricing policies and promotional offers to avoid any confusions for potential buyers. More and more brands are wanting to move towards an omnichannel experience, integrating the offline with the online. As Christina Dam, Product Marketing Lead of Square suggests, “A great omnichannel experience feels familiar to the customer, regardless of the channel.” Hubspot defines the omnichannel experience as, “the ability to deliver a seamless and consistent experience across channels, while factoring in the different devices that consumers are using to interact with your business.” A 2017 ecommerce survey of 1,164 U.S. small and medium retail business owners, conducted by Square and Mercury Analytics, found that: 56% have a physical store 21% have a pop-up store, or pop-up at events 34% sell…

Sales prospecting has always been a time-consuming and often frustrating task for salespeople – from finding the right prospects for your business to finding their contact information and reaching out to them

However, with the right tools to help, these tasks can be easier and go so much faster. In this article, I’ll be sharing some of my top sales prospecting tips and tools to help you get better results in less time! We’ll be covering 2 different aspects of sales prospecting in this post: First, tips and tools that will help you identify quality sales prospects And afterwards, the tools that can help you easily discover their best contact information

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Tips and tools to help you find sales prospects

1. LinkedIn and LinkedIn Sales Navigator

The day…

Optimize your site to increase your email lists and generate more leads

Amazing, isn’t it? In spite of being pronounced dead more than once, email continues to drive the biggest growth for online stores and businesses alike. Heck, it actually seems to be performing better and better every year. The latest data published here on Smart Insights at the start of January proves that currently, email delivers approx. 30 times higher ROI than other channels. Plus, a staggering 95% of people rate it “important” or even “very important” to their organization.

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The catch? To generate similar results, you need to build a strong and vibrant list first. …

Data isn’t the sole property of a data analyst; content marketers should be using it to build a strong, results-focused content strategy targeted to buyer personas

When we say the word “data”, you might think it’s a bunch of information used only by technical marketers. CROs, SEOs, and email analysts are no stranger to an Excel sheet, but what about content marketers – the people who work with the power of words, instead of math? Content marketers – including strategists, editors and your team of writers – should be using data to drive your marketing strategy forwards this year. Why? Because content is how we connect with our audience and convince them to complete our marketing goals. Conversions are going to be a struggle if we’re not creating content that’s backed (with data) to prove what you’re creating works for them. In this post, we’re diving deep into data analysis for content marketers, allowing you…

A VIP web experience for your VIP prospects

It’s the first sign of light after what could be months of hard slog on your ABM (account-based marketing) campaign. You generate your first lead from one of the accounts on your ABM target list. Hooray! High fives all round for sure. After reflecting on how to build an ABM list for success, how to figure out which companies are coming to your website, and how to get ABM accounts to your website - we’ve now landed here. How to get individual named companies to convert to your website. This is in the middle of the ABM process, and a key part of what’s often called the flipped funnel approach: AKA land and expand. This is all about landing that first lead within an organization that you can then use a variety of engagement methods between sales and marketing to transition through the…

Part 1 of 2: How ecommerce can win with Amazon

Amazon is by far one of the biggest and well-known brands in the world and one of the top five largest companies in the world by market capitalization. The business has grown exponentially over the last 10 years and the pace is continuing at a rate of knots: Source: US Stock Market  Amazon has been a growing and dominant force of nature in the world of retailing since its origins in 1994, threatening existing players such as Walmart and Toys R Us, whilst disrupting entire market dynamics and customers expectations of what is expected in terms of quality, service and delivery. *For a detailed run-through of Amazon’s history, business model and strategy check out Dave Chaffey’s in-depth case study analysis. [si_guide_block id="79186" title="Download FREE Resource – 10 ecommerce mistakes" description="Explore the…

Chart of the day: social media apps are the most used apps

According to research by The Manifest, 39% of respondents said social media apps were the most frequently used apps on their smartphone. This was followed by gaming apps (10) and messaging apps (10%) and then retail apps (7%). Most users are using apps to keep in touch with people via social media and messaging or to play games, perhaps while they on a car passenger or on the train to work. Peoples smartphones are assisting peoples lives by keeping them social whether that's on social media or via messaging apps, and phones are also entertaining people. The research looked at wider mobile app uses and found over half (51%) said they use apps 1-10 times per day, though, in reality, people don't sound so this could be underreported. The survey also explored why…