Beyond Marketing

There are many different types of learning styles: auditory, visual, kinesthetic, etc. However, research shows that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text.

These statistics prove there’s an opportunity for digital marketers to incorporate visuals into their marketing strategies. Images help businesses increase the chances of visitor interaction with content and provide an additional opportunity for websites to be found in search results.

Here are a few ways image-specific digital marketing strategies can yield positive results for marketers and appeal to customers:

I was very happy to stumble upon a blog post over on the BrightCarbon site called "Marketing Automation—A Failure". Of course, I am not happy to hear of anyone's failure, but I am happy to finally see someone talking about the marketing automation mountain so publicly. 

Everyday, I hear from marketers that their top priority is to "really dig in and get our marketing automation fully working". That's usually followed by "...once I do that, I can focus on X, Y, and Z". Where X, Y, and Z are big business priorities (increase customer acquisition, decrease cost per lead, generate more leads, generate more online sales, etc, etc).

The majority of marketing studies tend to focus on either the consumer or producer side of the equation, essentially only telling half of the story.

It is easy to rationalize social media marketing as a tactic that is more cost-effective than traditional marketing. This post by Erik Deckers suggests that traditional marketing is barely worth your time and money while social media marketing is a cost-effective alternative. Just a year ago, MediaBistro.com suggested that with social media marketing, you can reach “1,000 people for a fraction of the cost using social media than you can through television, billboards or even email.” The Fast Company article we cited last week does not make a single mention of the cost of social media marketing.

High-quality content marketing is required to succeed in today’s competitive business world.  Whether you are a large corporation, a small or big business, an educational institution or a non-profit organization, your website visitors crave captivating, information-rich, content-marketing-raise-your gamehigh-impact and insightful content.  We are in the midst of the information age, and your prospects do a significant amount of online research comparing you to your competition.  How can you stand out and get ahead?  You need to deliver highly relevant and valuable information in a way that strikes a chord with your target audience.  Would you like to publish content that delivers results—seriously increasing the ROI of your content marketing?  Of course, you would, and you know that content marketing can do amazing things for your company.  However, the operative word is "can.”   Not all content is created equal.  

The concept of sales or marketing funnels has been around for almost as long as people have been selling. It’s a powerful image. A big, wide opening scoops up hoards of unsuspecting prospects who by some combination Demystifying The Inbound Marketing Sales Funnel image inbound marketing sales funnel1of gravity and the proper lubricant make their way to the tiny opening at the bottom, ready to make a purchase. Somewhere along the line someone decided to stratify the funnel into a top, middle and bottom. But what are these stratifications? Is it OK that the definitions are mysterious and subjective or can we, as marketers, get more out of our funnels if we bust the mystery of the sales funnel and adopt some practical working definitions of what top, middle and bottom really mean?

t’s everywhere. I live in Silicon Valley where many say that the terms disrupt and disruption have become buzzwords. Pundits believe that the word is losing its promise and impact through the acts and examples of entrepreneurs and businesses that misuse the word to describe intentions rather than associating it with a desired or natural effect.

In some of the startup meetings I attend for example, digital disruption is actually a stated business objective. Instead of “killing it” or “crushing it” many businesses are aiming now to disrupt it!

Kidding aside, disruption is more than a buzzword of course. It is a term that is becoming an important part of everyday business to describe what is happening to and around markets and ultimately companies everywhere. While it may be a genuine goal, disruption is the act of disturbing or interrupting the norm and its effect is measured by the the following series of events that unfold.

Segmentation is key for content marketing success nowadays, and as all your marketing messages need to speak to business pains, you need to ensure you develop your marketing personas so that you have a specific audience in mind and can show how you...

When European marketers do inbound, here are some insights that we found.

Conversion Optimization Maturity Models were all the rage at Conversion Conference, but they can make you feel like you're living with your marketing parents.

The Rise Of Social Media Analytics (And The Demand For Measurable ROI) [INFOGRAPHIC]

If you define influence by the size of your Klout score, you can stop reading this right now.

If you believe influence is driven by the creation of a relationship between two parties, where one sees the other as truly knowledgeable about a particular product or service, then let’s talk about the science behind that influence.

Je vous rappelle que la 8ème Nuit du Marketing aura lieu le 4 juillet,  3 temps fort animeront cette soirée

There’s a loaded question. Estimating the cost of Inbound Marketing is more nuanced than it seems. The big variables are how much foundational work has been completed, how well your existing website is working for you, how much content you already have that can be repurposed, your proficiency with blogging and social media, and the internal resources you have, both human and monetary, available to support your efforts. Let’s take a look at potential costs and cost considerations as they relate to the seven steps of Inbound Marketing.

In my last post about digital transformation, I spoke about the need for companies to realign their internal structures, enabling them to react quickly to customer feedback.

Recently we’ve been discussing some of our own analytics responsibilities, and it feels as though the smaller internal issues serve to highlight the wider-ranging business imperatives we’re starting to see occur.

Let’s take a dive into our reporting and compare notes...

Interactive content is fuel for your marketing automation platform. Read on to learn about different examples and how you can integrate it into your current marketing programs.

In this connected economy, the challenge is not connectivity – but alignment.

If you look for differences you will find them; and if you seek alignment, cooperation, and collaboration, you will find that too. This is why learning to effectively manage your business networks is without question the key to your business success.

Alignment is the result of taking connectivity to the next level. This is often accomplished by partnering or collaborating to progressively achieve mutually beneficial objectives.

Who are these partners?

These are logically team members, friends, and influencers, but could also be what you to be competitors

Research in behavioral economics and social psychology continuously shows us that people are irrational when they make decisions. Dan Lovallo, professor of business strategy and Olivier Sibony, director at McKinsey & Co. are exploring the most common biases in business and how they create dysfunctional patterns of decision-making. The goal is to create a common language—when we are aware of our biases and their impact on our organizations, we have more power to overcome them.

One of the biggest challenges in business (and life) is to lead change, that is, a fundamental change based upon a real shift in mindset or logic. It’s not that difficult to change results, it is really difficult though to drive a sustainable change, one that sticks and drives continuous improvement beyond ones presence.

Performing A/B testing of the primary communication elements of Inbound Marketing– your website, content, emails and landing pages – is a great way to identify effective (and less effective) ways to communicate your message and convert traffic into leads. The feedback is directly from users, and based on reactions to different designs, copy, offers, calls-to-action, user experiences, etc.

But too often, the results of A/B testing are used to identify how to a product or service should be marketed. A/B testing, however, should follow – not determine – a well-reasoned content strategy and simply used to pinpoint which way of communicating the same message is most effective.

...nothing is better than a good webinar. You can educate, inform, engage and convert your target market - all at once.

Being an association executive or a membership professional can be tough.

While membership organizations are at the heart of every major industry, technology, profession, and cause, you are usually cash-strapped and lack adequate staffing. Managing members, keeping them engaged, and providing value in the form of a membership can be especially difficult.

Does this sound like your organization?

In addition, productizing membership often takes a higher degree of planning, staffing, and coordination than selling a typical product or service. When it comes to innovation, ideas usually flow from the top down. Often times, whatever the board says goes.