When Should You Outsource Your Social Media Marketing?
Sure, you’ve been told numerous times how your business needs to be on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest. Instagram, and the social network du jour. Maybe you even know how targeted social media would fit in with your integrated marketing efforts. It’s just that you’ve got your hands full as it is, running a business. Not everyone has time to figure out the Tao of Twitter. So how do you know when it’s time to outsource the social media part of your marketing? Here are three indicators that are the first signs that it’s time to...
read moreThe Name Game
Selecting a Memorable Brand Name You’ve invested in a business plan, scouted for a prime location and honed your target market. Don’t settle for an ineffective, lackluster name. Here are quick tips for selecting a memorable brand name for your business. You also can follow these tips to name a product or service and create an integrated marketing naming system. A Is Better than Z Web search engines use an alphabetically driven organizational structure, so be sure your name ranks at the top of the list by choosing a name that falls early...
read moreContent Marketing Comes of Age
Content marketing is playing an increasingly central role in the channel mix, according to a new study from BtoB and reported at BtoBonline.com. The study, “Content Marketing: Ready for Prime Time,” was conducted in 2012 using an online survey involving 440 B2B marketing professionals. Key findings include: • 34% of respondents are “very” or “fully” engaged with content marketing, compared with only 18% the previous year. • 66% say they will be “very” or “fully” engaged in content marketing by 2013. • ...
read moreAre the 4 Ps of Marketing Dead?
If you’ve ever taken a marketing class, you undoubtedly learned about the “4 Ps” of marketing: Product, Place, Price and Promotion. Marcus Starke, national vice president of North America marketing at SAP, believes that, as marketing channels continue to evolve and social media increases in importance, a fresh perspective is needed for each of the 4 Ps. The Product (or service) is still paramount, but its value is now measured by what people think and say about it. If your product is poor, the blogosphere will explode with negative...
read moreEmbarking on a Mobile Strategy
Are smartphones and tablets replacing laptops in the life of customers? According to a report by Forrester Research, “mobile is not simply another device for IT to support with a shrunken website or a screen-scraped SAP application. Rather, mobile is the manifestation of a much broader shift to new systems of engagement.” While smartphones and tablets give companies greater opportunity to reach their customers and prospects around the clock and wherever they are, this ability makes it more important than ever for companies to establish a...
read morePURLs of Wisdom
One of the best ways to get the attention of current and prospective customers is to use a personalized URL, commonly referred to as a “pURL.” A pURL usually contains the name of a prospect or customer within a web URL and directs that person to a web page or microsite that is tailored to them, such as with prepopulated fields containing their contact information or purchase history. An example of a pURL is www.ABCCompany/joesmith, where “Joe Smith” is a recipient who receives a direct mail piece or email message encouraging him to...
read moreMobilize Your Email Campaign
If you’re thinking email marketing is a thing of the past, think again. Email still plays a vital role in the marketing mix. However, marketers need to more closely consider specific customer needs and wants to keep their email marketing effective. One of those “needs and wants” pertains to the fact that many more subscribers are reading emails on the go using smartphones and tablets. Accordingly, marketers need to ensure that their messages are readable and mobile-friendly. For instance, since most smartphones only display four to six...
read moreThe Enduring Effectiveness of Promotional Products
For more than 200 years, promotional products have integrated their way into daily life, serving not only as useful tools, but as powerful, long-lasting advertising. But how do recipients feel about receiving promotional products? What purpose do they think such items serve? What actions do they take? These are questions every advertiser should know and understand, as the answers can have a significant impact on their ROI. In an effort to answer some of these questions, the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) conducted a...
read moreRewarding the Right Behavior
Despite the growing recognition that customer experience matters, most employee compensation programs continue to be based on revenue targets. Andrew McInnes, customer experience analyst at Forrester Research, believes that as more companies acknowledge the effect that customer experience has on their bottom lines, they will begin to add customer feedback scores to their incentive structures along with the more traditional business performance metrics. According to McInnes, the process of establishing customer experience-based employee...
read moreLeveraging Customer Insight for More Targeted Communications
Staying relevant, valued and connected to customers — in other words, deepening the engagement — has become the number one challenge for marketers according to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council report, Routes to Revenue. In the report, marketers identified tactics and strategies that they feel are critical to deepening engagement. Nearly 60 percent said they intend to improve customer segmentation, profiling and targeting, while 30 percent reported that they were embracing more personalized, multichannel communications across all...
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