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You NEED To Disable These iOs Features Right Now, According To Tech Experts

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By Lisa Cupido

It’s easy to assume your phone’s operating system has your best interests at heart. But there are instances where some of your phone’s features can actually pose security risks, while simultaneously causing unwanted battery drainage. What to do? According to Tech Expert Danka Delic at ProPrivacy, privacy breaches are no longer exceptions or rare occurrences but the harsh reality of nearly everyone who owns a piece of technology — and changing a few iOs features can help. “In the era when our smartphones became like an extension of our brains – memorizing our search history, correspondence, images, and other important files – it became mandatory to secure them as much as possible,” Delic says. “Luckily, there are some easy yet very effective protective measures you can take to mitigate the risk of exposure and protect your sensitive data from all sorts of prying eyes. If you are an iPhone user, simply disable these three iOS features and you’ll already be making a lot of difference in your privacy settings – and as a great bonus, you’ll extend your battery life.” You need to disable these iOs features right now, according to tech experts.

Ad tracking

Ad tracking is a common practice that companies conduct with the excuse of providing you with personalized ads, according to Delic — but that tailored advertising service often comes at a cost of jeopardizing your privacy and is regularly off-putting. “Both your iPhone and its individual apps gather loads of data about you daily, and frequently they sell the gathered information without you even realizing it,” Delic says. “This sounds scary only because it is. So here’s how to prevent it: Scroll to your iPhone Settings bottom and then choose > Privacy > Apple Advertising, and finally switch Personalized Ads off. Additionally, you can disable Share iPhone Analytics if you want to prevent Apple from checking your iCloud issues, Siri recordings, or crash reports which can contain a lot of information about you. You can do this by going to Settings > Privacy > Analytics & Improvements, and toggling Share iPhone Analytics off.”

iphone iOs features

Mail tracking 

“Your emails are a particularly sensitive category since they come with a lot of personal information that is not protected enough,” Delic says. “Besides, some newsletters or marketing emails include tracking technology that can reveal to the sender whether you’ve opened their email (and therefore showed interest in their product) and your approximate location.”

Here’s how Delic advises preventing that from happening: Go to Settings > Mail > Privacy Protection and switch on Protect Mail Activity. Once you do this, the sender can no longer see your IP address or see whether you’ve opened the email. “Keep in mind, though, that the sender could still track you if you tap on any embedded link in the email,” Delic says.”

iCloud backup (for apps that don’t need it) 

Although Apple does a great job encrypting your backups, Delic says the truth is: it still holds the key to unlock anything you store on iCloud. In other words, if required by law, the company can unlock those encryptions. “To be on the safe side: You can manually select what’s being stored in iCloud, simply by opening Settings > Your name > iCloud,” Delic says. “Go through the list and uncheck anything you don’t want to be backed up online.”

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Lisa Cupido

Lisa Fogarty is a lifestyle writer and reporter based in New York who covers health, wellness, relationships, sex, beauty, and parenting.

Sourced from SHE FINDS

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5 Reasons Why Landing Pages Are a Must-Have Element of Any Marketing Strategy

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By Peter Roesler

I have designed, published, and tested thousands of landing pages through my years in marketing. All this time, work, and effort resulted in discovering the main reasons why you should have landing pages for your business’s site. If you aren’t using landing pages, now is a good time to change that. Here’s why:

Increase Conversions

Quality landing pages result in more conversions. Whether it is newsletter subscriptions, sign-ups, downloads, lead generation, or something else, when you use landing pages, you experience higher conversion rates than sites that don’t.

Remember, having a landing page doesn’t guarantee a higher conversion rate. Instead, landing pages provide you with the tools to improve conversion rates as time passes.

Reduced Cost Per Acquisition

Cost per acquisition (CPA) is the total cost of acquiring a new customer. While there’s no universal set number to acquiring a customer, I’ve found that it’s much less when you have landing pages in place.

Landing pages increase conversions and help produce a higher return on investment (ROI). I’ve also found that landing pages also increase your Google pay-per-click (PPC) Quality Scores. This results in a lower cost per click, which reduces the cost per conversion and eventually a lower CPA.

Showcase and Optimize Your Offers

Every offer needs a home and landing pages provide this home. Depending on your marketing strategy, you may have several offers to showcase, including referral programs, promotions, white papers, resource guides, on-demand webinars, and more.

The information you collect and share on the landing page varies based on the type of offer you’re looking to highlight the most. Because of this, you need flexibility for changing form fields, editing layouts, and optimizing the design and copy– a standard, set template doesn’t work. Your offers also need an easy, shareable link that are easily found on your landing page.

Scale Your Marketing

With landing pages, you scale your marketing without scaling your resources, money, or time. In the past, building landing pages took a lot of time and money. However, this isn’t the case today. It’s easy, fast, and affordable to create and publish new offers and pages on your website. This makes it possible to increase your marketing efforts without spending too much time or effort.

Test and Validate New Ideas

You have the option to spend resources, money, and time to build an entire website for something new you offer and then wait and see if anyone likes it. Another smarter option is to use a landing page to validate the audience’s response and collect feedback on an idea to see if spending more money on it is a smart idea.

When it comes to creating a marketing strategy today, implementing landing pages is a must. These offer you a chance to increase conversions, reach more customers, and quickly add new offers to your site.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Peter Roesler

Sourced from Inc.

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3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Neglect Your Digital Strategy

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By John Hall

Digital isn’t marketing’s wave of the future. It’s the present. If your brand hasn’t devised and implemented a comprehensive digital marketing strategy by now, you’re way behind the crest.

If you do have a digital strategy in place, don’t count on riding that particular wave forever. Customers are constantly accessing digital content. If they like what they see from your brand, they’ll return for more, and they’ll want to see something new every time. That’s why your digital strategy needs constant care and attention.

Here are three major reasons you shouldn’t neglect your digital strategy, no matter how well it’s doing right at this moment.

1. Digital Is the Here and Now

It’s a digital world. Technology has ushered in new ways of reaching target audiences demanding fast-food consumption of information and instant gratification. If your digital presence only constitutes a website, you won’t be found. You and your brand will be irrelevant.

Adding a few random channels, such as a Facebook business page and a Twitter account, won’t cut it either. You should develop a cohesive digital strategy over time, layering on the channels your target audiences are using. As you add a new channel, don’t neglect the ones you’re already using, especially if they’re producing solid results.

Remember that quality content is what makes you relevant in your industry and to your customers. Your brand should be routinely auditing how your content is performing across all channels to stay on top of performance. Did a piece of content get read more often, or did more people watch the video format? How long did it keep readers or viewers engaged? How many clicks, likes and shares did it get?

Although digital marketing is here to stay, factors such as algorithms and keywords change frequently. There are a variety of tools you can use to track search engine rank page volatility, so invest in one. More importantly, use it constantly to inform your content, adjusting it as often as necessary to keep your ranking high.

It’s obvious that not having a digital marketing strategy is an error. But neglecting it once you do is just as egregious. Digital is the way your audience is consuming information now and likely will be forever. Give your strategy sufficient care and feeding every single day.

2. Digital Has Kept Companies Afloat During the Pandemic

When the world went digital at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses had to quickly devise and execute a digital strategy. Brick-and-mortar shops on Main Street America needed to offer more than their Facebook business page. If they didn’t, their shops would fail — and many of them did.

Those who stayed in business had to pivot to online sales and figure out how to deliver orders, whether via curbside pickup or shipping them to customers. In roughly 42 days in March and April 2020, small business online sales platform Shopify saw a whopping 62% increase in customers as retailers looked for help with a new digital strategy.

For certain, the jump to online sales was spurred by the pandemic, but it’s safe to say it’s here to stay. Customers are now accustomed to the convenience of shopping online. Moreover, they’re excited about having the option of digitally supporting local small businesses instead of behemoths like Amazon and Walmart.

For businesses of all sizes to thrive in whatever world comes next, they need to constantly improve on their pandemic digital marketing strategies. When Salesforce surveyed consumers in mid-2021, 61% said they’re planning to spend more time online, 88% expect businesses to accelerate their digital presence and 69% insist that companies find innovative mechanisms for product and services delivery.

The people have spoken. To respond, keep your brand on the cutting edge of digital by developing strategies that continue to keep you relevant. Adopt successful strategies used by others in your industry but make sure you do so in a way that’s congruent with your brand. Monitor customers’ reviews and input and adjust to their needs and wants. Digital might have kept you afloat during the early days of the pandemic, but now you need to swim like a champ.

3. Digital Will Continue to Evolve

Amid constant uncertainty, businesses have adapted to one unchanging truth: Digital strategy, if done well, will always serve others. No matter what happens in the future, there will always be an online world to serve. Serve its citizens well, and you will do well in return.

The specifics of the evolution of digital marketing success are unknown, but the critical steps necessary to evolve are constant. Step one is learning how to effectively market your brand digitally. Watch what successful companies are doing to respond to their customers’ ever-changing demands. A reputable agency that helps you develop strategic content and SEO tactics will enable you to stay on top of this as well as step two, which is creating winning digital marketing strategies.

Step three is executing those strategies well and monitoring results. Step four? Repeat successes and eschew failures, which essentially returns you to step one.

Customers not only want the right content at the right time, but they want it delivered in a format they can consume easily. During the height of the pandemic, when many were spending nearly every waking moment in front of a screen, the popularity of podcasts skyrocketed. This evolutionary rise meant brands needed to reformat their relevant content to suit the preferred delivery method.

You can’t know for sure where customers will lead your company in the future. However, you can learn some valuable lessons from trends they established during the pandemic’s height. Brands will need to keep an eye on these trends in 2022 and beyond. Digital marketing’s underpinnings, such as content, speed, and SEO, aren’t going away anytime soon.

Digital marketing firmly entrenched itself from the beginning of Covid. It continues to evolve as brands get increasingly good at listening to customers and responding to their demands. Now is no time to neglect your digital marketing strategies. It’s time for your business to catch a wave that will leave you sitting on top of the world.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By John Hall

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

John Hall is the co-founder and president of Calendar, a scheduling and time management app. He’s also the strategic adviser for Relevance, a company that helps brands differentiate themselves and lead their industry online.You can book him as a keynote speaker here and you can check out his best-selling book “Top of Mind.” Sign up for Calendar here.

Sourced from Forbes

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How Covid broke supply chains, and how AI and blockchain could fix them

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When the coronavirus crisis erupted in 2020, it became apparent that the medical emergency was accompanied by severe shortages, especially in some medical devices.

The pattern was first observed for ventilators: demand spiked everywhere and the supply chain was disrupted. This was because production of the devices spanned multiple countries, with each part dependent on other parts manufactured in different locations. The longer the chain and the more complex the dependence, the greater the exposure of any point to the disruption of another one, and to mandated shutdowns.

Now, two years since Covid first hit, this pattern has affected almost every sector of the global economy. “Supply chain issues” have become so widespread that they are now a running joke, affecting everything from furniture to groceries. But why has Covid had such a severe effect on how we receive products and goods?

In recent decades, supply chains became lean, and they lengthened as they became more cost-efficient: more and more steps were added in the manufacture and transportation of any given product in the name of speed and cost. This means there are more and more places where something can go wrong between you ordering something online and it arriving to your door.

Scandi living room interior with grey, big sofa in the center and modern picture on the wall
The supply chain crisis started with ventilators and ended with sofas. Photographee.eu/Shutterstock

Today, downstream suppliers – such as those who provide vehicle control systems to your car manufacturer – depend on upstream suppliers – such as chip manufacturers – to deliver on time so they can in turn deliver on time to you.

With long chains, risks are now shared between multiple entities all around the world.

Using AI and blockchain to protect trade

Supply chain problems have a knock-on financial effect known as trade credit contagion. This is where firms delay payments to suppliers because their customers delay payments to them. The pay-on-delivery model can lead to cancelled or delayed shipments which can in turn lead to bankruptcies.

While a high proportion of trade credit risk remains uninsured today, a post-pandemic world may see insurance and reinsurance firms fill in this protection gap.

Researchers are currently working to develop methodologies to identify vulnerabilities in global supply chains and to understand their trade credit contagion risks. The goal is to make these systems more robust overall.

How can we design ways to design insurance and reinsurance contracts in order to effectively share the risk and mitigate vulnerabilities? How can reliable trade credit lead to fewer delays in supply chains and replace the familiar predicament we face now, of paying for something in advance with an unknown delivery date?

Artificial intelligence and complex network theory are helpful in identifying the structures that could pose systemic risk. They help us ask: which patterns of connections are likely to lead to delay and trade credit contagion and which are more robust?

Using these tools, we can create large-scale simulators of global supply chains responding to a wide variety of shocks and then use machine learning techniques to detect the problematic parts of the chain. This knowledge can then be used in market designs that strengthen the system before another pandemic or disaster occurs.

Other novel technologies such as blockchain bring the promise of using high quality data to analyse supply chain dependencies. blockchain technology uses real-time data and transparent verification carried out by multiple parties. In combination with other features, such as smart contracts, this could lead to timely resolution in cases of disputes along the supply chain.

An aisle in a warehouse with shelves stacked with boxes
We need to insure each link in the chain. dreamnikon/Shutterstock

My research involves

using blockchain to streamline record-keeping and payments. This problem is challenging because the adoption of blockchain depends both on the specifics of the technology and the cost.

The problem of adopting technology in the presence of positive externalities (whereby firms adopting the technology in turn improve the operations of external parties) is an old one in economics, but now these externalities are systemic in nature: the effects propagate along the chains. The cost of the technology depends on how many firms adopt it, and each one faces business specific costs based on its position in the supply chain, its risk tolerance and its costs to insure these risks.

Real-time recording keeping, the traceability of transactions, and the immutability of blockchain can all help supply chains become more efficient. This is all the more true if we consider the full length of the chain, where transactions need to be verified by several parties: participants in the supply chain, insurance and reinsurance firms.

The future of supply chains

Trade credit insurance is likely to grow after the pandemic. It may rely on private-public partnerships – the pandemic has shown that governments become important players when they impose shutdowns in certain areas.

These funds can be used to make up for payment delays, reduce losses and jump-start critical production where necessary. But not all links in a chain can be insured, and an important challenge is to identify the most important stages under different shock scenarios.

Supply chains can also be rewired – large-scale algorithms can identify which suppliers need to be replaced and which new ones need to emerge.

In a few years, supply chains may look different, as the overall goal shifts from minimising costs, as was the case before the pandemic, to minimising delays and trade credit risks. The end consumer will drive the need to rewire the network, as demand shifts. Ultimately, the flexibility of the customer determines the resilience of the supply chain.

Feature Image Credit: Studio concept/Shutterstock

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Mistakes You’re Making in Social Media Marketing

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By Deanna Ritchie

The world is filled with billions of users on social media across the globe, and that number is growing each day; and we can watch as the issues to increase.

Social media users have resulted in social media platforms becoming among the most popular virtual places.

Traditional marketing methods, such as commercials on TV, are usually only one-way communications, delivering a brand to the consumer. But social media marketing encourages engagement. It facilitates multi-directional communication, which:

  • Businesses can interact with their customers
  • Customers can interact with the brand’s image by providing feedback.
  • Customers can connect with fellow customers via posting posts.

As a brand’s owner and marketer, you can connect with a variety of potential customers in a matter of seconds with the use of pay-per-click.

There’s plenty to benefit from using social media for marketing. However, if your efforts haven’t yielded any results, you may be making some of the typical marketing mistakes that people make. Becoming aware of these marketing mistakes can help make the right choices and avoid the following mistakes.

1. You’re Operating Blindly

One of the most costly mistakes you can make with your advertising on social networks is to shoot blindly and expect to see results. Instead, you must be sure to treat it with the same seriousness that you would for any other campaign in marketing.

Make a strategy — a clearly defined social media marketing strategy. It’s an essential ingredient in an effective social media presence.

  • An effective social media advertising plan will guarantee that you’re posting content that will help you achieve your business goals. This will stop you from investing your time and energy in a campaign that is bound to fail.

You have scheduled and planned your posts in time. Regularly posting helps you build and maintain your online presence that is organic.

How can you develop an effective strategy?

A simple plan is not enough. You require a master plan that covers:

  • What are you hoping to benefit from your social networks? New leads? Increased brand recognition? If you aren’t sure what you’re after, it’s impossible to achieve it.
  • Who do you want to target?
  • Your action plan. What type of posts will you create? What strategies will you use to promote your content to reach your desired viewers? Do you require more videos?
  • The team is responsible for the management of your accounts.
  • The time and the money you’ll invest in social media advertising.

Your most crucial performance indicators.

Find out what you want from social media — and learn how you can achieve it. Then you will be on the right track towards achieving your total capacity on social media.

2. You’re Aiming at the Wrong People

There is a plan in the right place. However, if you’re trying to reach the wrong people or not targeting the right audience, you’ll have an issue of wasting time and funds. There will be a lot of followers with little contribution to your objectives–an audience that isn’t the ideal client.

In general, Facebook is the most popular social network in the world.

But, it doesn’t suggest that you should solely focus your marketing efforts exclusively on Facebook.

Social Media Platforms

First, define your target audience. The target audience is the group of people who are most likely to be interested in your service or product. You can determine who these individuals are based on income, age or education level, location, or even behaviour.

If you’re active across multiple social media platforms, be sure to focus on the popular platforms for your targeted audience.

For example, data shows that Instagram is most popular with those aged between 18 and 29.

Pinterest is the most popular social media platform among women. While Snapchat, as well as Twitter, are popular with those aged between 18 and 29.

LinkedIn might be more suitable for you if you’re working in the B2B sector.

People tend to overlook irrelevant content. Therefore, it is best to be careful not to make assumptions about the audience you intend to reach.

Examine them and modify your content to meet the needs and expectations of your audience. Your content should be valuable to your readers and incentivize them to interact with it.

Your tone must also be appropriate for the social network platform you are using. The type of content that your viewers are looking for varies across platforms.

Facebook users, for example, will expect a casual, fun, playful, and fun tone — it is an excellent place to connect and advertise. However, LinkedIn works best with a moderately formal tone, and Instagram is predominantly focused on aesthetics and is a great place to show your diversity.

  • Increase the reach of your potential audience with features such as captions and subtitles.
  • You can watch your videos even in loud spaces, like office spaces or in noisy areas.
  • Understand dialogues where participants speak rapidly.
  • Be alert, and help you transmit your message.
  • Access your content even if you have hearing difficulties.

3. SEO Best Practices are Neglected in Your Social Media Marketing

The biggest mistake companies make is not recognizing the importance of SEO to make their social media campaigns effective.

Similar to how you’re focused on SEO when writing content for your blog, such as landing pages and other web content. It would help if you did the same thing with social media.

Engaging in SEO will aid in ensuring your profile, product, or service is ranked higher in results from searches. This increases the organic search engine traffic that comes to your website and boosts your following.

The number of shares, likes, and comments your posts receive online determines your posts’ social media rankings and reach. So, especially to begin with — you will want to post regularly and share quality and exciting content. To stay competitive, plan to always show up with info, and put out quality content. Also, set your social media up to make it easy for your readers to share your content with friends and contacts by including attractive CTAs.

Use keywords. Find the most compelling phrases and words when researching keywords for your blog posts. Then, use them in the social posts you make.

Visual content is among the most powerful SEO strategies you can employ. Use relevant and high-quality images, video, additional images of products or services, and GIFs. Use all content that loads fast — and make sure your site loads fast.

The decision to include subtitles on videos and captions on images or GIFs is also to your advantage. Google, as well as other engines, can’t view the video. However, the search engines can read the text to index and search for the content, making your content more visible.

Implement SEO strategies, and you’ll notice an increase in impact.

4. Over-the-top brand promotions with no actual content

For most people, social media is an opportunity to connect and discuss opinions, keep informed on the latest happenings, and be motivated.

So, if you’re using it only to increase brand awareness and create auto-generated backlinks to your website, you’re not doing it right.

Why are you looking to create content that sparks people’s curiosity and conversation? First, have your goal very clear in your mind.

Feature Image Credit: George Becker; Pexels

By Deanna Ritchie

Managing Editor at ReadWrite

Deanna is the Managing Editor at ReadWrite. Previously she worked as the Editor in Chief for Start-up Grind and has over 20+ years of experience in content management and content development.

Sourced from readwrite

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The Covid Effect: Why CEOs Must Adapt a Digital Marketing Mindset

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By Joe Galvin

Four factors are shaping dramatic shift in buyer behaviour. What the C-suite needs to do in response

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Joe Galvin

Sourced from Inc.

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The best marketing email examples for small businesses

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Top marketing email examples for your business

Email marketing is a powerful way for you to communicate with potential customers, and persuade them to buy from your small business. People on your email list have already signed up to get more information from you, and now you’ve got their details saved with the best CRM software.

So how do you capitalize on that interest and turn them into paying customers? It’s a delicate process. You need to balance your email marketing strategy with the right campaigns and messaging, so you can keep people engaged. We can help.

In this article, we’ll explore some proven marketing email examples and techniques that you can use to drive leads through your marketing funnel, and get them to buy. You’ll be able to create strong email campaigns, understand the types of emails you need to send, hone your messaging, and discover the best marketing tools and software to reach your goals.

Let’s get into it.

Understanding the context for your email marketing

Before we get into the specifics, it’s helpful to understand how email fits into your overall marketing strategies and campaigns. We recommend reading through our previous guides, as they’ll provide useful context and understanding.

Email marketing is a great addition to your other marketing channels, like ads and organic marketing. Start with a grounding in marketing 101, and learn what those other channels are. Next, it’s helpful to create some overall marketing strategies, as they will inform your email marketing approach.

Marketing funnels are a critical part of connecting with potential customers and persuading them to buy, and we outlined how to do that with each of the main marketing channels. Email is very much a mid- and bottom-of-funnel marketing channel.

Here, we’ll assume you already have techniques for getting people to sign up to your email list, through lead magnets, incentives, and other means.

Email marketing campaigns and examples

close-up of an iCloud email icon on a smartphone

Email marketing campaigns allow you to communicate to the customers you want, how you want, and when you want (Image credit: Unsplash)

An email marketing campaign brings together several factors so that you can communicate to the right people in the right way at the right time. Here are some of the areas you’ll want to cover, together with some examples.

Define the purpose of your email marketing campaign

Each email marketing campaign should have a distinct purpose, normally based on what you want the campaign to achieve. This purpose should be closely aligned with your overall business goals and marketing strategies. One email campaign can serve multiple purposes, but be careful not to try to do too much with each campaign.

Examples of email marketing campaign purposes

  • Raise awareness of your business and brand to create positive associations
  • Share helpful information and educational content with your audience to build trust
  • Generate traffic to your website by pointing readers to useful resources
  • Nurture leads over time to drive them towards buying your products and services
  • Incentivize purchases through special offers, discount codes, and other techniques

Decide what success looks like and track your email metrics

Once you have a campaign purpose in place, you can define how you’ll measure its success. You can use this information to set baselines and make improvements to optimize your campaigns further.

Examples of email metrics 

  • Email open rate: The number and percentage of people who opened and read your email
  • Email click-through rate: The number and percentage of people who clicked on a link in your email and arrived at your website
  • Email conversion rate: The number and percentage of people who took a desired action on your website after clicking through

Email automation software will help you track all of these factors, and can be integrated into your website analytics to track areas like conversion and revenue.

Understand who your audience is and the right approach and tone of voice

You need to identify your audience so that you can communicate with them in the right way. This involves analysing who you’re trying to appeal to and creating marketing personas. Then, you can choose an approach for your email messaging that communicates with your audience in an engaging way.

As you’re considering the right approach, try and put yourself in the mind of your reader. Think about what would most appeal to them. Look at the previous and future email messages they’ll receive, and choose the style of email to complement the overall campaign.

Examples of email approaches and styles

  • Visual: Heavy use of images to enhance visual appeal and build your brand
  • Interactive: Built-in links to audio, video, and other interactive content
  • Informational: Helpful information that informs and educates the reader
  • Supportive: Guides the audience through possible solutions using your products and services
  • Authoritative: Positions your business and brand as leading experts in your industry
  • Promotional: Incentivizes customers to purchase your products and services

Create an email campaign schedule for the messages you will send

Most email campaigns are known as “drip” campaigns, because they send out messages over time. This drip-feed of information keeps you front-of-mind with your readers, and lets you build on previous messages, branding, and goodwill.

This means you should schedule the messages you want to send, at an appropriate frequency for your audience. You’ll want to vary the content so that you’re not over-emphasizing any one particular thing, but you’re still supporting your overall campaign goals.

Think about the right combination and timing of your emails to drive readers toward your desired actions, and set the schedule accordingly.

Write the specific email messages you will send to your audience

Finally, you’ll want to create your email messages, which we’ll cover in detail below.

Email marketing messages and examples

person typing on laptop

You can take multiple approaches to email campaign writing, but ensure you’ve chosen the right ones for the right aims (Image credit: Unsplash)

Your email messages are at the heart of a successful campaign. There are dozens of different approaches you can use to optimize your messages, and we’ve listed some of the more common examples below.

Example email approaches to create emotion

  • Provoke curiosity and intrigue the audience by using questions and suggestions in email subject lines
  • Make your readers laugh by using wit and humour in your messaging
  • Personalize messages and create authenticity based on information in your email list and CRM

Example email approaches to drive recognition 

  • Strengthen brand recognition by developing strong and unique imagery that you can share in your emails
  • Theme your emails around specific events and seasons
  • Share news and updates in your industry that affect your products, services, or customers
  • Use different layouts, designs, images, and interactive elements for messaging
  • Try out animation and other techniques for an eye-catching result

Example email approaches to build trust 

  • Show contemporary knowledge by using pop culture to put a different spin on your emails
  • Build trust through providing best-in-class guides and resources that answer questions and solve problems
  • Follow up on successful purchases, providing additional information, support, and guidance

Example email approaches to drive sales 

  • Encourage readers to buy your products by using discount codes and incentives
  • Inspire urgency in sales emails through limited-time offers
  • Vary your “calls to action” to see what leads to the most click-throughs and purchases

Example email approaches to optimize all messages 

  • Test out different headlines through split-testing and other techniques to optimize open rates
  • Open your emails on various devices to ensure they read and display well
  • Try out various tones of voice and approaches to your messaging, to see what lands
  • Experiment with different parts of your audience’s “buyer journey”, and tailor messaging to each stage

Once you’ve developed your campaign, experimented with your messaging approaches, and written your messages, it’s time to automate your email marketing.

The best software and tools for automating your email marketing

laptop open on desk with digital marketing displayed onscreen

By taking advantage of the best automation tools and software, you can improve email marketing and save time (Image credit: Pexels)

Automating your marketing will save you enormous amounts of time, allow you to schedule your campaigns and messages, and track responses and metrics. Marketing automation will work alongside your CRM software to manage all of your marketing campaigns, via email and other channels.

Our picks of the best software for email marketing and automation include:

  • HubSpot: HubSpot provides a complete suite of CRM, sales, customer service, and marketing software, including email automation, workflows, and tracking.
  • Mailchimp: Mailchimp offers a wide range of email and automation features that will engage customers and drive interaction with your business. You can design engaging emails, build your email list, manage your campaigns, and implement your strategy.
  • Constant Contact: Constant Contact is one of the staples of email marketing services, enabling business owners to create unique email marketing campaigns to reach their customers.
  • Zoho Campaigns: Zoho Campaigns provides a wide range of newsletter templates that are very visually appealing for both clients and customers alike.

All of these tools provide lots of great email templates and examples to help you create the perfect marketing messages and campaigns.

We hope this guide provides you with some helpful techniques and inspiration to connect with your email lists, engage with leads, and drive sales.

Feature Image credit: Unsplash

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Paul is a professional writer who creates extensively researched, expert, in-depth guides across business, finance, and technology. He loves the challenge of taking complex subjects and breaking them down so they are easy to understand. He can quote ‘The Princess Bride’ in its entirety and believes the secret to good writing is Earl Grey tea.

Sourced from techradar.pro

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Plan the Marketing Work, Then Work the Marketing Plan

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By Christina Mautz 

I’m one of those truly weird marketing geeks who loves planning, simply because I can’t stand just doing “stuff” without having conviction around whether or not it’s the right stuff.

So how do we approach marketing planning with the greatest chance of success? Here’s how I’ve worked with my teams on planning, along with a few tips for planning during these hybrid times.

Start With the Customer

As with most things in marketing, good planning starts with the customer. This typically means revisiting your ideal customer profile (ICP) and customer segmentation. Has anything changed? What is your data showing — is one segment far outperforming another? Has your ICP changed, or (for enterprise) has your buyer’s committee expanded to include more influencers? Ask yourself these critical questions before you start formulating those brilliant marketing ideas. It’s also helpful to look at the market and see if any outside factors have had a significant impact on your customers’ businesses. For example, how has the global pandemic affected your businesses? What changes have you made as a result?

Don’t Ignore Your Competitors

Unless you’re working for one of those huge tech companies that have few (if any) competitors, it’s also a good idea to take a look at what your competitors have been up to. Have they launched new features that they’re promoting? Have they changed their pricing strategy? Have they updated their website with new messaging that makes you think a little differently about your own?

While I think it’s smart to stay more focused on your customers’ needs vs. playing chicken with your competitors, it’s helpful to stay current on what they’re up to so you don’t find yourself scrambling to compete one month into your new marketing plan. I find it particularly helpful to create SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities, threats) grids for each competitor as well as my company. Doing this can help you define where to place your bets. If you go this route, be sure that you don’t make assumptions about your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses — rely on objective facts you gather from actually using their product(s), from customer reviews on third party review sites, and from your competitors’ websites.

A List Is Not a Plan (and an Objective Is Not a Goal)

One of the biggest mistakes I see marketers make is jumping right to the fun stuff: that list of marketing ideas they want to try! No matter how creative or even how data-driven that list is — and even if it’s a timeline or calendar view — it’s still just a list of stuff unless you’ve started with an idea of what you’re trying to achieve. In other words, what is your objective? It’s important to understand that an objective is not the same as a goal. For example, an objective might be: Grow business from the Retail segment. Whereas your marketing goal would be: Deliver 1,500 MQLs from Retail by June 30, 2022.

The objective helps set the stage for the marketing strategies you’re going to employ. Whereas the goal is simply a measurement of whether or not you achieved the objective.

Strategy … the Hardest (and Most Critical) Part

I’ve seen great marketing plans that started with an objective, had a great list of creative marketing tactics … and still failed. Typically when this happens it’s because there was no clear glue between the objectives and the tactics. The “glue” that’s missing is the strategy, and it’s often missing because it’s the most misunderstood word in business. I guarantee that if you Google the word “strategy,” you’ll likely find multiple different but somewhat overlapping definitions. I think of strategy as the way you define at a high level how you’re going to achieve your objective.

Feature Image Credit: travelnow.or.crylater

By Christina Mautz

Sourced from CMS WiRE

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How to Set up Your First Campaign on LinkedIn in 5 Steps

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By Alexandra Rynne

The first step is often the hardest. New undertakings can feel complicated and intimidating before one dives in and gets a feel. At LinkedIn, we recognize that this can be the case with Campaign Manager. When investing in your brand’s success, no marketer wants to miss a step or get off on the wrong foot.

Objective-based advertising experience is designed to make campaign setup more seamless and intuitive, all while providing the top benefits of advertising on LinkedIn.

Below, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to setting up your first campaign. Through these straightforward instructions, you can square away your targeting, ad format, budget, and more. Plus, we’ve included some insider tips to maximize your success right off the bat.

(Note, the guidance below covers the setup process after you click “Create Campaign.” For specifics on creating your account and campaign groups, we recommend checking out our LinkedIn Learning course, Marketing on LinkedIn: The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide, which walks you through everything.)

Setting Up Your First LinkedIn Campaign in 5 Easy Steps

1. Choose your objective

We believe it’s important to build your entire campaign around what you hope to achieve, which is why this is the very first step. You’ll want to decide whether your goal is awareness, consideration, or conversions. Then, you can select from subcategories to get more specific. If you’re unsure which one to choose, this blog post explains how to select the best objective for your LinkedIn ad campaign.

Tip: We highly recommend balancing your objectives across the awareness, consideration, and conversions category, as part of a full-funnel marketing approach.

2. Choose the right audience

As a preface, we strongly suggest saving an audience once you’ve created one, so you can use it again. This will enable you to frequently skip much of this process in the future.

First up: profile language. This is a basic yet critical step in personalizing your ads for their recipients. LinkedIn offers 19 different language options!

Next you’ll want to customize your location settings — the only other required targeting facet for building an audience. Start at the continent level, then country, etc. In addition to choosing regions you wish to include, you can pick exclusions as well.

From here you can start exploring the more specific and granular targeting criteria, which are organized across five different categories: Company, Demographics, Education, Job Experience, and Interests.

Watch the video below for more guidance on setting up your audience targeting:

Tip: You can use the Matched Audiences feature for more precise targeting, enabling you to combine your own first-party data with LinkedIn’s robust professional data. Options within Matched Audiences include Email Contact Targeting, Lookalike Targeting, Website Targeting, and Account Targeting.

3. Choose your ad format

Based on your objective, a certain set of ad formats will populate here. Some of the ad types available to advertisers on LinkedIn are:

  • Text Ads: Consist of a headline, brief text, and an optional image. This format may be placed at the top of the page or on the right rail on desktop pages.
  • Single Image Ads: Allow you to promote your message directly in the LinkedIn feed. This ad format can be targeted to a specific audience across desktop and mobile
  • Carousel Ads: Allow you to tell an interactive story with a swipeable series of cards in the LinkedIn feed. You can customize the content and link for each card.
  • Video Ads: Allow you to engage your audience with interactive content directly in their feed. These ads show up on desktop and mobile.
  • Dynamic Ads: Personalized ads that appear on the right rail of desktop pages and allow you to acquire followers, showcase your product, and share thought leadership.
  • Message Ads: Direct personalized messages delivered through LinkedIn messenger with a single call-to-action. Messages are only delivered when members are active on LinkedIn to ensure higher conversion. This format is available on desktop and mobile.
  • Conversation Ads: Allow you to create a choose-your-own path experience for your audience. This allows for deeper engagement with your audience and more conversions. This format allows you to include multiple call-to-action buttons. 

For more info on which ad format is best for each objective, take a look at LinkedIn’s Guide to Objective-Based Advertising.

Tip: Creative best practices across all ad formats include showcasing value, making every word count, featuring eye-catching imagery, and having a clear call-to-action. 

4. Set your budget and schedule

You can select either daily or total budgets, depending on your preferred spending structure.

The start date for your campaign will automatically set itself to the current date, unless you select otherwise.

When it comes to bidding, the automated bid option is what we generally recommend, because the tool will most efficiently use your budget without stringent oversight required. For best results, we advise going with the recommended bid or higher.

Tip: To get a full grasp of the terminologies and fundamentals of LinkedIn ad bidding, check out our blog post on Defining Key Terms for LinkedIn Ad Auction.

5. Launch and optimize

With the objective, audience, format, and budget all squared away, it’s time to push your campaign live! Note that new ads are reviewed by LinkedIn before being served to members, but this process usually takes less than 24 hours. (Learn more in our advertising guidelines.)

Once the ad is active on the platform, you’ll start gathering data and insights, which can help you optimize and improve results. We recommend letting ads run for seven consecutive days before making optimizations, but at that point, you can begin drawing conclusions and tweaking campaign elements based on what you’re seeing in these performance categories.

Tip: A little attention and oversight can go a long way when it comes to maximizing the value of your ad spend on LinkedIn. Evaluate campaigns each week to check bid ranges, make sure the daily budget is properly allocated, and more.

Now You’re Ready to Rock Your First Campaign

With these five simple steps, you’ve launched a LinkedIn ad campaign and checked all the necessary boxes. Remember: all of the above steps will become more efficient after you’ve gone through once and saved your audience for future use.

For a more in-depth walkthrough of all this information, including videos, interactive exercises, and knowledge checks, we invite you to experience our LinkedIn Marketing Labs course, Introduction to LinkedIn Ads. It’s free and, dare I say, even kind of fun?

By Alexandra Rynne

Sourced from LinkedIn Marketing Blog

 

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How to Make Your Brand Storytelling More Compelling

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By Muhammad Khan

Marketers sell you the solution to your problems. A good marketer will make you desire their product, even if you didn’t want it in the first place.

However, your target customer needs to relate to your business on some level. Otherwise, no amount of sugar coating will compel them to buy your product. Therefore, connecting a product to a story is an effective way of marketing as more people will find it relatable.

‘Storytelling’ Marketing has become an effective trend in recent years. Marketers love to present narratives that convince the customers to invest in their products. However, storytelling is an art, and many professionals get it wrong. If you are an aspiring marketer, here’s how you can make your brand’s storytelling more compelling.

Connect to customers with effective brand storytelling

Impressing clients and generating leads are the two main goals of successful marketing. An attractive brand story can achieve both easily. However, coming up with a good enough concept to build your brand’s story is a whole different task altogether. Check out these tips to improve your brand storytelling skills:

1. Understand What Your Target Audience Wants

While marketing their product, many brands’ biggest mistake is ignoring their target audience’s wants. Instead, they’re so invested in the features and attributes of their product they forget about the needs and demands.

Therefore, before you work on any marketing idea, identify the target audience and their needs. Launching your product without planning won’t get you the best results. For example, one audience group might care about what you’re offering, but the other won’t even bat an eye. So, instead, create a brand story that relates to your product’s expertise without forgetting your target audience’s requirements.

2. Emotionally Connect With Your Audience

Boring statistics or data does not attract most consumers. Instead, they want to see an advertisement they can relate to. Naturally, this will eventually lead to better sales. However, if you have to add data to your advertisement, why not fit it into a compelling narrative?

You have to present your data to your target audience so they can get emotionally attached to what you’re offering. For that, you have to be creative and think out of the box instead of simply throwing stats at your clients. For example, brands like Netflix use data to suggest and develop content according to popular demand. The bottom line is, you have to lure your target audience into buying your product or service. Consequently, an emotional brand narrative can increase conversions significantly.

3. Know Your Brand

Besides knowing your target audience, it’s also highly essential to know your brand, its offering, its objectives, and what it believes in. You should know your products’ most significant selling points and give high importance to the features your target audience cares about.

Moreover, it’s also important to analyse your competition and adapt to market trends. Also, it’s important to take the input of all your employees for creative, relevant, and authentic ideas. You can do this by organizing a survey for your employees to ask for suggestions on the product’s launch.

4. Keep it Simple

In marketing, you should never over-complicate things. It’ll only make matters worse. You don’t want to fend off potential customers by presenting a complex and overly-informative narrative. Instead, you should present your brand’s story in a simple, creative, and precise manner.

Only discuss features and details your target customers are interested in. Have you ever seen Apple over-complicating a product launch? No! They keep everything simple and discuss what needs to be discussed. In your launch, you should discuss the problem your product is addressing, its significance, and how your product can turn out to be the best solution.

5. Add Interesting Visuals

Video is the most common medium brands use to market their product through storytelling. Most customers prefer visual media instead of written media. Here’s an interesting trivia; the human brain processes visual content 60,000 times faster than text-based content. However, videos are extremely common these days. Stand out from the rest of the marketing by using original and unique approaches.

For example, you can use attractive animations and visual effects to capture your audience’s attention. You can also use audio advertisements as they’re quite effective as well. Many brands promote their products through podcasts and audio advertisements on audio-streaming platforms like Spotify and Soundcloud. Use interesting creative taglines in your audios or videos as well.

Furthermore, stay updated on modern trends, technology, and media. For example, many professionals use recent sports competitions to market their products. Similarly, you will find popular instances of companies creating memes on social media with creative and humorous product placement.

6. Keep Your Business Model Transparent

Have you ever imagined why Apple is so successful? Whatever they do turns out to be successful. They are so good at selling they might even sell an ordinary piece of rock for hundreds of dollars in their stores. Apple makes so much money because its clientele blindly trusts its quality. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say Apple has converted its customers to its brand ambassadors. They present their product with utter transparency and authenticity.

Therefore, you have to make your business model more transparent to your target customers to sell your product. By ensuring authenticity and transparency, you convince your audience to try your services instead of already established brands. Don’t try to scam your consumers by showing something and providing something else. Such gimmicks won’t last long in the current era of social media.

7. Present an Attractive Brand Personality

Last but not least, to captivate your audience, you are required to have an attractive brand personality. Therefore, you need to keep a strong, confident, and persuasive mindset while promoting your product. If you are having difficulties developing such a personality, you can seek the help of a brand communication coach. They’ll help you understand the science behind developing a brand personality that sells.

You should have a persuasive tone while discussing your brand’s story. To this end, share many cases where your product provided customers with an effective solution.

8. Value Your Customers

Customers’ requirements always come first. To sell your product effectively, prioritize your customers in your brand story. Show them how you value their problems and how your product can provide them with the desperately needed solution. Put forward customers’ testimonials where your brand solved their concerns. Be transparent and don’t fool anyone, as trust is one of the biggest factors deciding your brand’s longevity. Once your customers feel valued and respected, they will trust your business and might ditch already established brands for your product.

The Verdict

Marketing techniques can make or break the sales and success of a product. Therefore, telling a brand story that attracts and inspires your consumer base is extremely crucial. Therefore, try to produce a relatable brand story. Furthermore, present it in such a way your consumer has no choice but to go for your product.

By Muhammad Khan

Guest author: Muhammad Jazib Khan works as the Digital Marketing Manager for British Assignments Help, where he creates creative content and ideas to promote educational platforms in the market. As well as aligning the company’s goals with online marketing activities. He contributes articles on digital and content marketing regularly. 

Sourced from Jeff Bullas

He is the owner of jeffbullas.com. Forbes calls him a top influencer of Chief Marketing Officers and the world’s top social marketing talent. Entrepreneur lists him among 50 online marketing influencers to watch. Inc.com has him on the list of 20 digital marketing experts to follow on Twitter. Oanalytica named him #1 Global Content Marketing Influencer. BizHUMM ranks him as the world’s #1 business blogger.

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