With any marketing, the end goal is to make money, right? If you talk to some marketers, you’d think their primary goal is “brand consistency” or “generating awareness” or “increasing website traffic.” But in the end, these aren’t the real reasons we as marketers get up in the morning and do our jobs. We are […]
Many companies struggle with determining whether it makes sense to secure a monthly retainer with an inbound agency or marketing firm, or employ these agencies on a project-only basis. As someone who used to work for an agency on the project fee model, where assignments are scoped and an agreed-upon budget is determined before […]
At the beginning of this year, noted marketing thought leader Mark Schaefer of {grow} wrote a now somewhat infamous blog post titled Content Shock: Why content marketing is not a sustainable strategy. If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend taking a moment to do so. His basic theory is that we are nearing the intersection […]
Acquiring new customers is a full-time job. It’s easy to get caught up in feeding the acquisition machine and neglect those who have already evolved from visitor or lead to the prime position of customer. Truth is, it costs businesses 6 to 7 times more to attract a new customer than retain an existing one. […]
How to convert marketing leads to customers through lead nurturing Ever browse through a store, and a sales rep just won’t leave you alone, despite telling her that you’re “just looking”? What about getting a phone call from a sales rep just a few minutes after filling out a form on a website to download […]
Virtually every industry on the planet is being revolutionized by technology, and marketing is no different. In the past, sellers controlled the buying cycle, with salespeople acting as the first point of contact with buyers through traditional methods such as cold calls and trade shows. However, today’s buyer has all the power, putting off talking […]
Stuck in a rut when trying to find blog topics? Once you’ve been doing this content marketing thing for a while, you may feel like you’re running out of things to talk about. Much like writer’s block, blogger’s block is a real epidemic. There’s a time and place for repurposing, but where do you turn […]
Analytics make it simple to analyze your email marketing’s effectiveness, from hard and soft bounces to click-through rates and conversion. But what do you do with that information, and how to you improve if your campaigns are below the industry average? Here are a few benchmarks broken down by industry, courtesy of MailChimp:
“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” The old quote—attributed at times to Winston Churchill—says it all. Concise writing is difficult. But it’s important—not just as a matter of good writing, but for effective marketing. In 2013, a human being’s average attention span was calculated at 8 seconds. That was […]
In 1970, Citibank set in motion a series of events that eventually gave birth to a movement dedicated to simple, clear writing. Now called the plain language movement, Citibank’s efforts resulted in legislatures across the country passing laws requiring documents like insurance policies and consumer contracts to be written simply.