B2B Marketers Say Email Delivers the Highest ROI Leads
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Study after study confirm that email marketing continues to be a top lead generation channel.
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Best of Growth Spurts – Our Favorite Posts from January
We regularly update our Growth Spurts blog with actionable marketing & technology advice, news and information. These articles are often hand-picked to address issues and projects we’re working on with our clients, but they are relevant to most business owners involved with any aspect of marketing their business. Here are our 5 favorite posts this month:
On Content Marketing
10 Content Marketing Goals Worth Pursuing – Content marketing – your blog, downloads, white papers – is quite often one of the biggest marketing expenses, and one of the most difficult to measure.
Adwords and email gives the satisfaction of seeing immediate, measurable results. But your investment in “content”? It’s often a big unknown.
The goals in this article help put that investment in context: Invest in content, and you invest in your business. Consider: building trust and rapport with your audience; attracting new prospects; deepening loyalty with existing customers; helping with SEO; and even attracting strategic partners.
And to help you develop your 2017 Content Marketing plan, this article – B2B Content Marketing 2017: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – gathers 25 content marketing stats all in one place … dive in, explore and learn.
On Email Marketing
13 Things to Start, Stop & Keep Doing With Your Email Marketing in 2017 – Email marketing is a powerful tool to encourage your audience to engage with content and to nurture leads in your database along the buyer’s journey. Understanding the points made in this article will ensure that your email marketing is 2017-ready.
On Exit Planning
First Impressions are Critical in the Sale of a Business. What Impression Does Your Website Give? – For business owners contemplating selling their business, one of the many factors that can help them achieve their exit revenue goals is better and more cost-effective marketing. This includes their online presence, which starts with the company website. Not sure if your website will help or hurt your ability to sell your business? Our alliance partner at Business Transition Academy outlines five factors to take into account.
On SEO
8 SEO Trends You Need to Pay Attention to in 2017 – SEO is a constantly changing landscape. This article highlights eight trends to be aware of as we start 2017, including:
- HTTPS is no longer just an option. Security issues aside, Google has confirmed it’s a ranking signal.
- Social media will be an even larger referral traffic goldmine.
- Mobile-first strategies have become a necessity.
- Links will continue to be important, but they should be a by-product of excellent content.
Continue reading for details on these and 4 more SEO trends for 2017.
The Most Effective SEO Tactics – According to recent research from Ascend2, marketers say creating relevant content is the most effective search engine optimization (SEO) tactic. Results also show that it’s the most difficult to execute. Read the article.
On Analytics
How Google Analytics Ruined Marketing – Strategy => Content => Channel. This article reinforces the need for all marketers to understand the difference between a marketing strategy (what message are you trying to convey) and a marketing channel (what’s the best method for conveying that message).
It also reinforces one of Sales Renewal’s key beliefs that “there is no ‘digital marketing’ and ‘traditional marketing.'” Sure, there are digital channels and traditional channels, but they all should be used to support the marketing strategy. Read the article.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Learn 13 Things to Start, Stop & Keep Doing With Your Email Marketing in 2017, 8 SEO Trends to Pay Attention to in 2017, How Google Analytics Ruined Marketing, and More.
13 Things to Start, Stop & Keep Doing With Your Email Marketing in 2017
Maximize your email marketing with strategies you should start implementing, absolutely avoid, and keep up in 2017 and in years ahead.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
We agree: Email marketing is a powerful tool to encourage your audience to engage with content and to nurture leads in your database along the buyer’s journey.
Understanding the points made in this article will ensure that your email marketing is 2017-ready.
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How Millennials Really Want to Engage with Brands: 62% Say Email
Email is overwhelmingly preferred by all generations, Bluecore Study finds.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
This article highlights two key pieces of information for anyone assessing the value of their email communications:
68% of people responding to a survey about preferred brand communications in all four demographics – Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z – said they prefer to receive brand communications via email.
More than half (53%) of all survey respondents say their smartphone is the primary device on which they check email. This stat increases with younger audiences: 67% of Generation Z and 59% of Millennials.
Bottom line: keep email communications front and center in your marketing plans.
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Best of Growth Spurts – Our Favorite Posts from July
We regularly update our Growth Spurts blog with actionable marketing & technology advice, news and information. These articles are often hand-picked to address issues and projects we’re working on with our clients, but they are relevant to most business owners involved with any aspect of marketing their business. Here are our 5 favorite posts this month:
On SEO
How to Get Past the Dreaded SEO Plateau – You’re not alone if, even with strong content and high ranking through SEO, your organic traffic may not be growing at the same rate, or your keyword rankings are stagnant. This plateau is actually a good sign that your SEO program is working. But, you can take various steps to improve your SEO performance. Find out more here. And if you don’t have a clear SEO strategy in place, contact Sales Renewal to help you get one established.
On Website Marketing
10 Tips for Making Pop Ups Go the Extra Mile for Your Business – Popups – if you are still from the school of “pop ups on my website? never!, ” it may be time to rethink your position.
We admit, they used to annoy us so much that we would never recommend them to a client. But today, when it comes to growing mailing lists, Sales Renewal has evolved to a new best practice for e-commerce clients and any service client with an active content marketing program. So rather than counting on visitors noticing a “join our list” link somewhere on a page, we proactively pop up a dialog asking if they want to join. And subscriptions have skyrocketed. Read all the tips here.
On Email Marketing
Ecommerce Email Marketing: 10 Tips to Boost Product Sales – This article reinforces the importance of supporting your e-commerce efforts with email marketing and can be used as a helpful checklist of things you can put into action today. Read more here.
2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study – Measurable, flexible, and affordable, email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing tactics available, and one Sales Renewal recommends for all our clients. Reviewing your email marketing on a regular basis is important to be sure your emails are working the best they can. This annual report of email marketing benchmarks from IBM is a helpful resource that offers 25 open, click- through, list churn and mobile metrics that you can use to gauge the effectiveness of your email program. Read more.
If you have questions about how you can make your email program work for your business, contact Sales Renewal today.
On Content Marketing
Brands Need to Focus on Content or Risk Failure – Ever stopped and wondered why you were ______… Fill in the blank with any marketing tactic: blogging, emailing, interacting on social media, “doing” SEO, advertising, sending direct mail.
We continually review our clients’ marketing programs, from quarterly plans to monthly reviews to day-to-day changes, to be sure we are addressing the clients’ needs in the most effective manner.
Content marketing can be one of your biggest investments and yet one of the more fluid, changing programs to manage. This article brings it back to the basics: Understand your audiences; have a plan; create quality content; and focus on integration, not silos. Read more here.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
We regularly update our Growth Spurts blog with actionable marketing & technology advice, news and information. These articles are often hand-picked to address issues and projects we’re working on with our clients, but they are relevant to most business owners involved with any aspect of marketing their business. Here are our 5 favorite posts this month, covering SEO, e-commerce, email marketing and content marketing.
2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study
This 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark will allow you to discover how you measure up across 25 open, click-through, list churn and mobile metrics, plus get insights on:
- Industry-specific comparisons and geographic breakouts from across the world
- Device usage, holiday trends, transactional emails and engagement rates
- Benchmarks beyond “average, ” including median and top-performing quartiles
- Using this data and related best practices to improve your email program
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Email marketing – it’s measurable, flexible, and affordable, making it one of the most effective digital marketing tactics and one Sales Renewal recommends for all our clients.
And like any marketing tactic, reviewing your email marketing on a regular basis is important to be sure your emails are working the best they can. This annual report of email marketing benchmarks from IBM is a helpful resource that offers 25 open, click- through, list churn and mobile metrics that you can use to help you see where you rank.
Here are some of the top highlights; download the report for more details.
Open Rates
Open rates can signal progress or problems with engagement. It’s not a completely accurate metric because it doesn’t capture all opens due to image blocking and other factors. In the US, average unique open rates are 21.3%. When comparing message types, unique open rates for transactional messages are 47.1% vs non-transactional at 21.6%.
Click-Through Rates
The click-through rate (CTR) is measures recipient action on an email message, measured as a percentage of messages opened. In the US, average click through rate is 3.3%. When comparing message types, unique click-through rates for transactional messages are 8.8% vs non-transactional at 3.3%.
List Churn Metrics Overview
One of the biggest concerns our clients have is unsubscribes. All businesses can expect some list turnover (churn), but it’s quite often difficult to determine if this is a natural rate or if there is some problem with your email communications. Rising unsubscribe rates might tell you your email messaging doesn’t match what subscribers expected when they signed up. Higher-than- average hard-bounce rates can indicate you don’t practice good, ongoing list maintenance.
According to the IBM study, the unsubscribe rate is most useful as a trend indicator. Even the lowest performers generate unsubscribe rates well below 1 percent. However, is that rate going up or down? If your unsubscribe rate rises over time or remains constant while spam complaints increase, you might have an unclear unsubscribe process or be losing subscriber trust.
In the US, the mean hard bounce rate is 0.467%; the mean unsubscribe rate is 0.122%.
Download the study to read about Holiday Retail and Ecommerce Metrics and Device and Email Client Usage. And if you have questions about how you can make your email program work for your business, contact Sales Renewal today.
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Best of Growth Spurts – Our Favorite Posts from June
We regularly update our Growth Spurts blog with actionable marketing & technology advice, news and information. These articles are often hand-picked to address issues and projects we’re working on with our clients. We believe they are relevant to most business owners involved with any aspect of marketing their business, and we offer a regular summary roundup of the most popular/interesting posts.
On Exit Planning: Miscalculation: The Little Big Horn Of Exit Planning – Any business owner disagree with: “It’s far better to start planning two years earlier than you think necessary than five minutes too late”? The article’s author recently surveyed business owners and found that owners frequently underestimate what needs to be done to transfer their businesses to the person they choose, when they want, and for the amount of money they need. Find out more here.
On Content Marketing: 10 Techniques to Successfully Amplify Your Content Marketing – Write it and they will come? Only if you follow through by letting people know your content exists. These tips will help with one of the most important steps in content marketing: “amplify”, or get the word out. Some of our go-to techniques: Keep sharing your most popular posts; Update and republish relevant, evergreen posts; and Curate similar content (and include a link to your original post). Read all the tips here.
On Email Marketing: Using Email Addresses for Retargeting – Take your email list to the next level by combining it with re-targeted advertising. Even if you have a very small ad budget, you can take advantage of the re-targeting options available on Facebook, Twitter, and Google. Read more.
On Local Marketing: 10 Things People Still Get Wrong about Local SEO – Do you still believe targeting keywords for Local Search is irrelevant? Claiming a Google listing will automatically increase search visibility? A huge radius will make you rank better for local cities? Find out how Google really ranks your business on SEO.
On Analytics: Four Key Metric Groups for B2B Marketers – This article reviews four of types of metrics key to succeeding in the B2B marketing space:
- Lead generation metrics (ROI of ads & campaigns; raw leads; quality of leads);
- Top of funnel metrics (Visitors to most popular landing pages; Organic / non-paid traffic; PR and non-paid media impact)
- Community & nurturing metrics (Email metrics; Time to respond for user questions)
- Customer satisfaction / loyalty metrics (NPS score; Survey data )
Read the article for details about each of these metrics groups. How many of them are you using?
Sales Renewal’s insight:
We regularly update our Growth Spurts blog with actionable marketing & technology advice, news and information. These articles are often hand-picked to address issues and projects we’re working on with our clients. We believe they are relevant to most business owners involved with any aspect of marketing their business, and we offer a regular summary roundup of the most popular/interesting posts. Continue reading…
Best of Growth Spurts – Our Favorite Posts from April
We regularly update our Growth Spurts blog with actionable marketing & technology advice, news and information.Just case you’ve missed these updates, we offer a regular summary roundup of the most popular/interesting posts. where we extract the most useful information, and in many cases, provide a link to learn more.
Here, then, are our 5 favorite posts from the past month:
Email Marketing
What Consumers Want from Brand Emails. Read this article if you’ve been rethinking the content and focus of your company emails. It seems pretty clear that offers – 20% off, BOGO, free shipping – are what consumers are looking for. Read more
Content Marketing
50 Terrible Work Phrases You Need to Stop Using. Guilty as charged? It can be hard to avoid buzz words, but you can lose credibility in the workplace by using too many. Did they miss any?
Social Media Marketing
How Homebuilders Can Leverage Houzz, Pinterest and Instagram. A picture is worth a thousand words – and may bring you some customers, too! – especially if you are a “visual” business that takes advantage of image-based sites like Houzz, Pinterest and Instagram. Read more
Social Media and the CEO. Does your company CEO have a voice on social media? If so, are they sharing information the public wants to hear? Read about a recent survey that shows how company news, goals, aspirations are much more important to share than those leaders’ personal stories.
How to Maximize Your Content Exposure on LinkedIn. If you’ve spent any time on LinkedIn, you’ve probably realized that it’s not always as clear cut as to the best way to use it for your business. That’s because at its core, it’s a peer-to-peer network, designed primarily for individuals to connect. There are some things you can do, though, to bring visibility to your business. Read more
Stay up-to-date with marketing news and advice for your business. Subscribe to our Best of Monthly Digest here.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Our monthly roundup of actionable marketing & technology advice from the Sales Renewal Growth Spurts blog includes our 5 favorite posts from the past month: What Consumers Want from Brand Emails; 50 Terrible Work Phrases You Need to Stop Using; How Homebuilders Can Leverage Houzz, Pinterest and Instagram; Social Media and the CEO; and How to Maximize Your Content Exposure on LinkedIn.
Now you can Manage your Google Location Data with Yext
Yext now offers integration with the new Google My Business API.This allows for rapidly updating key location data such as unforeseen closings or changes to opening hours across Google Search, Google Maps, and ads; controlling the data Google receives about your locations and ensure it is always consistent, authoritative, and up-to-date; and saving time and streamlining your data management process.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Sales Renewal has used Yext for managing nearly all of our clients’ online listings presence for several years now. With this integration with Google, we no longer need an extra step of making Google listings are in sync with the rest of a client’s listings.
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How to Plan and Create Evergreen Content
Evergreen content has potential for SEO purposes. Here is a look at how to plan and create content, and where to find ideas.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Not every blog post has to cover late breaking news or special discoveries. Your blog needs a solid stable of quality, evergreen posts – those that have a longer shelf life – that address questions your audience is asking. This article explains how to plan for your evergreen content.
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