Chart of the Day: What is the comparison of segmented vs non-segmented campaigns
Segmentation is an important tactic every email marketer should be using.
Firstly, what is list segmentation? List segmentation is when you segment (or split) your subscriber list based on your chosen criteria. E.g: if you want to only target clients in London, you would build your list, and instead of choosing everyone, you would only include those clients whose city was London. This means everyone outside of London wouldn't receive the email. You can make your list very specific and more relevant to your client (making sure that the email messaging reflects this, of course) but it will also make your dispatch list smaller. Segmentation is pretty standard with all Email Service Providers (ESPs) and they will have documentation of how to set them up for your campaigns.
In the below chart, the results are unsurprising. We…
1 to 1 dynamic content personalisation is the future of email marketing
I am a big fan of automation, a very big fan. Whenever you can, automate part of your email marketing process. While delivering timely, personalized and relevant content, automation is a big step forward in email marketing maturity of any program. So, the next big thing is Email Content Automation. Few email marketers are currently using it but it’s about to be the hottest trend – and a trend that’s here to stay.
Realistically a lot of production time goes into curating, copy-pasting and sorting content. Then there’s compliance and the multiple people who have to give their stamp of approval, checking details they shouldn’t be worrying about. It can take all your time just to manage and get “business as usual” email out of the door. Often that is a huge waste of creative power, time and resources. Wouldn’t…
How to adapt to the shift to mobile commerce
For a long time, the rise of mobile marketing has been the darling of tech predictions. Since Mary Meeker, an analyst at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, said in 2008 that "Mobile [will] overtake fixed Internet access by 2014", the world has been waiting for that prediction to hold true. It did, at least by some sources, precisely that same year she said it would.
According to a study by Comcast, in 2014 mobile usage represented 60% of the total time spent online, while desktop-based consumption made up the remaining 40%.
Since the majority of your website visitors come from mobile devices, you need to adapt your digital marketing strategy to take advantage of the…
Predictive analytics and consultative selling among the most important trends for B2B sales strategy in 2017
As a marketer, you’re more than familiar with the importance of closing the gap between marketing and sales. It’s been proven over and over that the more these teams talk, the better the results.
Yet according to Aberdeen group, salespeople still spend an average of 440 hours a year searching for the right content to use. Furthermore, 65% of marketing content isn’t used by sales at all!
When looking at the most popular sales trends for 2017, three are crucial when bridging this gap. These trends are most likely to inform your sales enablement content over the next year and beyond
In this article, we’re going to analyse each trend to see not only how they will contribute to your sales enablement efforts, but your marketing strategy as a whole.
1. Subject Matter Experts will Play Salesperson & Marketer
The…
Chart of the Day: Mobile ad spend continues to skyrocket, but customer perceptions of mobile ads are still in the doldrums
Armani don't do infomercials. Rolex doesn't do direct mail. Ralph Lauren don't do coupons. Why do they ignore these often successful marketing tactics? Because if you put your ad for Rolex watches on a crappy leaflet and shove it through someone's door it degrades the brand. It detracts from it's luxury, it's exclusivity.
The lesson is that it's not just the content of the ad that matters. The medium it's delivered in matters.
This should make marketers wary about rushing head long into mobile ads when customers are reporting so many issues with them.
There's no doubting that such a rush is occurring. Spending on mobile ads doubled in just two years - and will reach an impressive 143 billion this year according to Statista.
And…
Plan, manage and optimize your Google AdWords campaigns with this new template for managing your PPC marketing
Google AdWords is a fantastic way for businesses of all sizes to drive relevant visitors to their website generating new enquiries or online sales. The beauty of AdWords is that it is really flexible and puts most of the control into your hands, so no matter which products/services you are selling you can get started within an hour or two even with the most modest of marketing budgets.
And here is where the many problems of AdWords start and why some businesses miss out because a quick trial fails since they don't work to optimise their campaigns...
"While it is very easy for anybody to set up and run their own AdWords campaigns, it is also just as easy for your campaigns to take a life of their own, spending your hard earned marketing budget on driving…
Chart of the Day: It's never good to compare yourself to others - except when it comes to Email Marketing.
Benchmarking your email marketing is extremely important. It is pivotal to know if you are outperforming your sector or if you need to adjust your tactics.
If you work in B2B then the key stat you need to pay attention to is the fact that B2B retail has an open rate of 24.24% and the click rate is 4.75%. Whereas B2C - Other is slightly lower with an open rate of 22.64% and click rate of 4.04%.
Email benchmarking is discussed in greater detail in our post, Email Statistics - 2017 update.
Source: Email marketing benchmark reports 2017
Sample Size: 1.5 billion emails over 2016
Recommended Resource: Email Marketing Guide
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Roundup of the 3 big AdWords changes announced in the past week
In the midst of the fallout of last month's exposé in the Times that ads on Google Display Network (GDN) were appearing on terrorist or pornographic websites, Google has been busy making announcements about how they're helping brands and being transparent with their metrics.
In a brilliant move to increase the data at users fingertips, or a desperate ploy to detract from the fallout from the revelations about GDN (delete according to your take on the Google ads debacle), Google have just announced two new metrics they'll be providing to AdWords users. They've also introduced a close variants feature which changes how exact match keywords work.
Unique Reach Metric
To show users how many people are really seeing their ad content, they've created the new 'unique reach' metric. This allows you to see the number of unique users and average impressions-per-user across…
Is SMS is included in your marketing strategy?
It has been predicted that by the end of 2017 a massive 4.77 billion people globally will own a mobile phone! Now that is a staggering statistic. It has also been reported that 63% of smartphone owners keep their devices with them for all but one hour of their waking day (MarketingTech, 2016). Our phones are always glued to our hands and what better way to target mobile users than by texting them? So why is SMS so rarely utilised by so many marketers?
It’s underuse by businesses is quite staggering, with 64% of customers believing that companies should utilise text messaging more (SAP, 2015) and, provided permission has been sought, 83% don’t find SMS intrusive provided the message is relevant to them (SAP, 2015). Let’s be honest, SMS has had a difficult past which has tarnished its reputation. It wasn’t too long ago…
Chart of the day: The biggest challenges for growing email list size include increasing sign-up rate and improving content
New research from Ascend2 found that improving email sign-up conversion rate and improving content quality and relevancy are both the biggest challenges for marketers when it comes to their email marketing list.
The research also found that improving list hygiene and reducing unsubscribe rates are also important.
Naturally, conversion rate increases are the biggest challenge but content is important to marketers, who realise that quality, relevancy and value of content is key to email marketing. It ultimately is what will encourage customers to interact with the brand.
Source: Ascend2 - Email List Growth Trends
Sample: 255 respondents split between B2B and B2C, most in a senior role (such as manager)
Recommended resource: Email Marketing Pre-Send checklist (Expert member resource)
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