Kristen Dunleavy says, “Got a big idea? The Draw Shop can help. The team of 20, led by co-founders Erik Kerr and Summer Felix, create attention-grabbing whiteboard videos designed to boost sales and marketing success for companies large and small. The Draw Shop works with everyone from independent authors to huge corporations like Google, collaborating with them each step of the way to create the perfect video. But when your customer base varies as much as The Draw Shop’s, how do you maintain a steady flow of highly-qualified leads? According to The Draw Shop co-founder Erik Kerr, email... [...]

Chris Handy says, “The number of emails sent is growing rapidly. Target Internet forecasts a growth from 109 billion in 2015 to 140 billion in 2018 (oh, and that’s 140 billion … a day). Yes, you read that right. That’s 20 emails each day for every person on the planet! At the same time, according to eMarketer.com, open rates continue to decline. Yet email remains at the core of most sales and marketing strategies. Strong email lists are, after all, a more secure asset than website traffic (you’re not totally in control of how much traffic your website can get, but do... [...]

Ben Salmon says, “We use email in our everyday lives and it has certainly been around for a while, since 1972 courtesy of Raymond Tomlinson. Email allowed us to seamlessly send electronic communications then, and today it is a common marketing tool to drive customer engagement. So why is email seen as the poor relation in the world of digital marketing? Introduction Today email is a common marketing tool to drive customer engagement. I specifically say ‘customer engagement’ as we all know it requires not only opt-in but more importantly a common identifier in this case an email... [...]

Temper Thompson is a 17 year-old boy who is a protégé of famed marketer and trainer Matt Bacak. Together, they have produced Email Cash Blueprint, with the methods Bacak taught Thompson, methods that made Thompson’s business take off. With a mailing list of under 1000 subscribers, using this method, Thompson (a high school student) earns over $10,000 in a month, which is over 3 times what his teachers make. Email Cash Blueprint contains an interview Bacak did with Thompson, in which the method used is detailed. You get the video, the audio and a PDF transcript of the interview. You can... [...]

Chris Handy says, “It’s no secret that email marketing is a critical component of the inbound methodology. After all, why work so hard to build up a database of leads if you never do anything with them? An email campaign can be a very successful approach to nurturing leads through the funnel if you take the time early on to outline a solid strategy. Like most digital citizens, you’ll probably start off by doing some online research around email marketing. If other marketers have seen success with this method, it’s likely that you’ll want to figure out what worked for them. Unfortunately... [...]

Andrea Francis says, “Remember when it was enough to have a decent-looking website with a couple of your keywords on a few product pages? How times have changed! Increasingly, marketers have to come up with innovative ways to grab visitors’ attention. When infographics first blew up the internet, they had the same impact as when businesses starting publishing their own ebooks, reports, and white papers on the web. Minds were blown, hats were taken off, people applauded. Life was good. But pretty soon, infographics saturated the web and they were no longer as sparkly, shiny, or... [...]

Steve Dille says, “Beer, of course, gave us civilization, according to historians and anthropologists who have explored the misty originals of communities and cultures at the dawn of the human epoch. It was the one sure way of slaking thirst with potable water that wouldn’t give us dysentery (or worse), and by allowing people to socialize and communicate more freely, beer led to advances in commerce, culture and science. It also helped in the evolution of Buffalo wings and professional football, which may be all the civilizing influence some of us care about. An Opportunity On Tap The... [...]

JP Mangalindan says, “Early Twitter investor Chris Sacca said on Friday that if the social network eventually pursued a sale, Facebook, Google, Alibaba or Microsoft would benefit most from acquiring it. That was the gist of Sacca’s latest television interview on Friday. The tech investor, who has funneled cash into more than 40 businesses, including Uber and Instagram, name-checked those four tech giants during his Bloomberg interview. “I think all of those companies would benefit strategically,” Sacca said. “All of those companies would be able to explain to their... [...]

Ashley Johnston says, “The decision by Facebook, which is rather late to the GIF party given that animated GIFs are already commonly used on sites like Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, Imgur, BuzzFeed and more, virtually guarantees that animated GIFs will soon be commonplace (like it or not) for nearly everyone. It may even give Facebook an opportunity to re-engage Millennials who already frequently communicate using stickers, emoji, emoticons and animated GIFs. To make use of the new feature right away, Facebook users will need to paste a link to an existing GIF into their status update box. Users... [...]

Kristen Dunleavy says, “Jill Winger lives in the middle of nowhere – and she loves it. The self-proclaimedhomesteader and her family reside on a working farm in the southeast corner of Wyoming, 30+ miles away from the nearest grocery store. And yet Jill connects with 50,000 people every day all over the world, thanks to email marketing. From Farm to Laptop Jill wasn’t always a homesteader. In fact, it wasn’t until she and her husband purchased a 67-acre farm in 2008 that she developed an interest in gardening… then building a compost pile… then keeping dairy animals. She wanted... [...]