Marina Hoffmeier says, “Anybody can send an email these days, but how can you make it really stand out in the inbox? Turns out, there are a lot of ways and a lot of brands are already putting those tactics to work. We teamed up with Really Good Emails to talk about the innovative things brands are doing with email and how to apply them to your own email strategy. It takes time and testing to know what will resonate with your audience, but if you take a cue from these email experts, you’re as good as gold. What separates a really good email from the rest? It depends – the answer really... [...]

Christopher Jan Benitez says, “There are lots of factors that determine the success of business blogging. One of those factors takes place even before building a blog for your business. Choosing the platform where to host your blog is important as it serves as the foundation where your blog rests. Therefore, it is crucial that you get selecting a blogging platform right the first time. If you feel that you have chosen wrong, you will need to undergo a painstaking process of transferring all your content from your old blogging platform to a new one. This goes by also saying that there is no... [...]

Stephen Key says, “If you have an idea you want to bring to life, you’ll have to convince others it has merit — quickly. In today’s world, the best way of doing that is with video. Hands-down. Video dominates our news feeds. It captivates our attention. Simply put, we love to watch it. I mean, who wouldn’t rather click play? For years, I relied on physical sell sheets to license my ideas for new products. Sell sheets are straightforward, like billboards: On a single sheet of paper, I’d focus on highlighting the major benefit of my idea. I’d also include an image, name, my... [...]

Luke Richards says, “Over the past few months our Internet Statistics Compendium has seen some increasingly detailed mobile advertising data hit its pages, thanks in part to some free-to-download research over at Kenshoo and IHS. For today’s post I want to reflect on some of these trends and relate them to some of my own recent experiences of mobile ads – particularly the ever-surprising world of in-app advertising. We know that app installs and in-app ad spend are both growing Kenshoo’s Mobile App Advertising Trends Report released back in March highlighted some good top-level growth... [...]

Paul Cheney says, “The promise of content marketing is that all that’s needed to provide value is creating high-quality material that gets noticed. The material then does all the pre-selling for you so your company closes more deals with greater efficiency. No need for cold calls, pushy sales tactics, or throwing money at direct mail. But the question since the beginning has always been, “does it ROI?” According to Karen Thomas-Smith, VP Provider Marketing and Reference Management at healthcare giant Optum, it absolutely does. She led a team in a pilot program at Optum that completely... [...]

Sonia Simone says, “Every business needs content. Not the bland, me-too nonsense that frequently clutters up our inboxes and feeds, but genuinely useful, interesting content. Content that helps a business stand out amid the clutter and noise. Content that moves prospects closer to a sale. Content that can become a powerful differentiator for your company. And businesses often have a tough time finding the writers who know how to create that type of content over time. One of the reasons I think organizations struggle is that they don’t always know what qualities will make for a genuinely... [...]

MOZ team says, “Is the practice of tracking keywords truly dying? There’s been a great deal of industry discussion around the topic of late, and some key points have been made. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand speaks to the biggest challenges keyword rank tracking faces today and how to solve for them”. Should SEOs and Marketers Continue to Track and Report on Keyword Rankings? – Whiteboard Friday MOZ  [...]

Monica Montesa says, “By now you should already know that if you’re not creating video, you’re missing out on some serious audience engagement and revenue growth (if you don’t feel like clicking the link, here’s a taste of the stats you’re missing out on: 64 percent of users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video… including video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80 percent… 75 percent of online video viewers have interacted with an online video ad this month… is your jaw dropping yet?). But I understand why you might not be ready to dive... [...]

Rich Kahn says, “Creating informative, helpful content for marketing purposes is easier said than done. There are a few common mistakes that most beginners make that you can avoid. Here are seven of them. 1. You don’t set a goal or plan a strategy Content marketing shouldn’t be thought of as a separate entity, but as part of your marketing strategy as a whole. You need content to supplement your website or social media posts and to give customers a reason to look to you for help. If you keep content marketing separate, your customers will not experience the “big picture” that... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google is introducing three new reports on cross-device activity, along with a reorganization of the Attribution section under the Tools menu in AdWords. With six out of 10 online conversions in the US starting on one device and ending on another, according to a Google/Ipsos study, the new reports are designed to help marketers track cross-device conversion paths, including those that feature search ad clicks from more than one device in a conversion path. The new cross-device activity reports: – Devices: an overview of the cross-device activity in your account. –... [...]