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Retail Marketers Are Bullish Moving Into 2018

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Nearly 90% of retail marketers will increase marketing spend this year.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

RetailMeNot has released result of a study showing how retail marketers will expand their content, use their marketing spend and what they are planning in 2018 to better engage and convert consumers.

This year, 9 in 10 retailers will increase marketing spend, and marketers will spread their increased budget almost evenly among marketing channels such as social, mobile, brand and display. This move reflects the need to ensure that every customer is receiving information in the channel of their choice. Interestingly, 93% of mid-sized retailers (between US$500 million and US$1 billion in annual revenue) are increasing their budget compared to 86% of large retailers (more than $1 billion in annual revenue) indicating an increase.

“Retail marketers are no longer thinking in channel silos. They are approaching commerce holistically with an understanding that consumers are channel-agnostic,” said Marissa Tarleton, CMO, RetailMeNot. “Delivering an experience that meets the consumer in the moment across the shopping journey will be the pathway to success for brands.”

Tackling New Trends and Challenges

While trends like virtual reality are still an exciting frontier, most retail marketers have their sights set on more realistic forward-looking trends. More than half of retail marketers surveyed believe improving mobile web checkout capabilities (52%) and offering exclusive promotions for mobile app users (51%) will positively affect sales growth in 2018. Additionally, voice-assisted shopping is an area that 39% of retail marketers plan to implement, with many retailers hoping to capitalise on increased use of smart home systems and smart speakers.

About 50% of retailers indicated they will use multi-touch attribution in order to better monitor the quality of traffic from their advertising investments. Further, retailers will become more bullish on advertising fraud as they look to ensure that their marketing is reaching the highest quality audience. More than 6 in 10 retail marketers (63%) will increase their direct media buying in 2018 in order to better monitor the quality of their traffic from advertising investments.

Holistic Approach to Increasing Sales

Retail marketers are wisely embracing mobile as a conduit for sales both on the phone and in physical retail stores. Based on our survey, retail marketers believe mobile is the key priority for positively affecting sales growth, and 72% will use mobile marketing to drive in-store sales. Further, 82% will rely on mobile marketing to drive in-app sales.

As marketers look to increase revenue in the coming year, their team structures and channel approaches will evolve to become more cross-functional. In fact, 50% of retail marketers say that their mobile marketing team falls under digital marketing within their organisation, up from 41% in 2016.

Finally, promotions continue to be top-of-mind for driving sales. Most retailers (76%) plan to increase the amount of promotions they are offering in 2018, and 86% will partner with websites and apps that focus on deals, cash back and loyalty programs.

“The convergence between physical and digital shopping will blend even further this year,” said Tarleton. “As retail shifts continue, delivering seamless shopping experiences—be it in-store or online—are critical to success.”

RetailMeNot is a savings destination connecting consumers with retailers, restaurants and brands, both online and in-store. The company enables consumers across the globe to find hundreds of thousands of offers to save money while they shop or dine out.

 

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High Impact Digital Marketing Tips to Sell More

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If you have a sales event coming up, like the end-of-season sales, then here are the tips you need to know.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

The actual benefits of designing commercial strategies around events like America’s Black Friday or China’s Singles Day improve market platforms and strengthen the domestic economic market because it’s a great opportunity to encourage consumption and sales.

On Black Friday, for example, thousands of companies from different industries tag along with the commercial event and offer large discounts on their goods and services. However, competition is rife. An offer can lose its meaning when another company offers a better one, and what’s more, businesses must not only participate in Black Friday, but really know how to stand out and attract consumers.

So how do you as a marketer get your business to stand out?

Here are some tips from Adext. They deploy and optimise online advertising campaigns on Google, Facebook, Instagram and thousands of websites to increase the sales of SMEs that have limited resources for the activities.

1) Plan a strategy: It’s not enough to offer irresistible discounts on events like Black Friday… You need a promotion strategy with a clear action plan and execution dates. You must be clear on what discounts and incentives you’ll promote, how you’re going to put them across, the digital platforms you’ll use, who you’ll target, when and why. The what, how, where, when and why questions are key to developing any action plan. Come up with answers to them while always keeping the goal you want to achieve in mind. In this case, it’s sales.

2) Research your competition and make sure to offer something really attractive: You could offer a 10% discount, but if your main competitor offers 25%… You can imagine the outcome. If you want to take the lead, look at what they’re doing and ask yourself how you can beat their discount and/or add more value (without affecting your profit margins). You could give your prospects something of value like a gift for their loyalty, or an extra incentive for them to buy more. Also, don’t forget to let your imagination roam and build your offer or promotion around a creative concept.

3) Build Anticipation: Teaser campaigns are wonderful for building your target audience’s curiosity. Don’t reveal your discounts, offers or incentives too soon… Let your prospects discover what they are as anticipation builds. They should be interested and intrigued to find out what you’ll offer them on your sales event day. There are several examples of clever, catchy strategies where they invite their prospects to go to Snapchat to discover what the 10 star products reduced to €10 are.

4) Send your prospects emails: You can send a few emails before the big sales day (to build anticipation), and other reminders before the day arrives.

Here are three tips to make your email marketing campaign a success:

  • Make sure to add an attention-grabbing title or subject line to your email. An email subject line you see all the time, like “Check out our discounts!” will go unnoticed. But if you can entice the reader with something like “I don’t want to freak you out, but you’ll regret it if you don’t take advantage of this” will definitely pique their curiosity and make your open rates go up.
  • Once they open your email, there must be something of interest for them to look at and read… The body of the email must be pleasant to look at, and easy to read and scan. Use short paragraphs, bold letters, headlines, subtitles, vignettes, images, and of course: good copywriting.
  • Add a CTA (Call-To-Action), where you specify what you want the reader to do once they’ve read your email. For example, you might write: “Our discounted products will be available in store until we’re out of stock. We’ll be ready to serve you when you arrive” or “Buy your Christmas gifts NOW and make sure you don’t get burned in January”. This action-oriented copy should stand out on the page. And if you have an online store, add a link to it.

5) Take advantage of the power of social networks: There is no doubt that you need to be where consumers spend most of their time. Where’s that? In this digital world, it’s on social media. Join the conversation and interact with your audience. Include the most relevant hashtags (e.g. #Black Friday or #SinglesDay or #Summersales) on your posts, so that prospects looking for discounts and deals can easily find you.

6) Let digital advertising bring you the clients you need: Digital advertising no longer has to be complicated. And it can give you the results you’re hoping for. Adext is the first Artificial Intelligence platform in the digital advertising space that can automate the entire process of creating, managing and optimising your ad campaigns on Google, Facebook and Instagram.

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How Cold Email Marketing Can Grow Your Business

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By Nick Tubis

While I was in college, I met the founder of a fast-growing startup in Boulder, Colorado and had lunch with him. I asked him questions like, “How are you guys growing fast?” and “How do you acquire customers?” I didn’t realize it at the time, but what he told me transformed how I do business today. The founder told me that they were acquiring an insane amount of B2B customers at an insane rate with virtually no marketing spend. His secret? Cold email marketing.

I was hooked in seconds and spent the next couple of years learning everything I could by testing different email marketing methods. Finally, I cracked the code.

Why You Should Care About Email Marketing

In the past, direct mail and cold calling have been top-of-the-funnel marketing methods for businesses attempting to acquire new customers. The problem with cold calling is that it is time-consuming and virtually impossible to get your prospects on the phone. Direct mail used to be effective, but now executives spend most of their days checking email — so if you send them an email, there is a much higher chance of them reading it.

You can send thousands of emails in minutes to generate massive demand for your product or service. Another benefit of emailing over calling is that it allows your prospects to get back to you on their own time.

The Basics Of Email Marketing

Find your prospects. 

The most important factor when it comes to sending sales emails is to send them to the right people. When preparing to launch an email campaign, figure out who you would like to target. Ask yourself questions like: Who primarily uses my product? What industries are they in? What role is the potential decision maker? Who would be interested in my product but doesn’t know it yet?

Know your sales formula.

You’ve probably heard the expression AIDA — attention, interest, desire, action. When you send a cold email to an executive, you only have a couple of seconds to grab their attention and interest in your product or service.

Know how large the lifetime value of your average customer is. This will determine your email marketing strategy and how much time you should spend on emails. For example, if the average lifetime value of a customer is only $1,000, send an email blast to your target audience. If the average lifetime value of a customer is greater than $10,000, send more personalized emails. The best strategy for enterprise sales is sending more quality emails and the best strategy for small businesses is to send a greater quantity of emails.

Know your customer.

If you can speak your prospect’s language, you have a much higher chance of getting a response. If you aren’t sure how to speak their language, just do a Google search of their industry, role and priorities for 2018. This will also prepare you for sales calls for the next step in the funnel.

Craft engaging subject lines.

If your prospect doesn’t open your email, you have no chance of selling them — you need to come up with a compelling subject line. Ask a question, say you have a quick question for them or use the word “your.” When you use “your” in the subject line, your prospect will be curious as to what your email is talking about. For example, you might use a subject line like “Your sales efforts” to grab their attention.

How To Write A Quality Email

Here’s a structure to follow when writing a cold sales email:

First paragraph: Show your research.

Instead of simply introducing yourself, show that you have researched the company or the individual you’re emailing to grab their attention. Read their latest press releases or browse their LinkedIn profile.

Second paragraph: Give them a solution.

Speak to your prospect’s potential pain points and how your product or service can solve their problems. Explain why your company is a good fit for them and how you’ve helped companies facing similar problems succeed. Talk about potential benefits rather than features of your product.

Third paragraph: Add a relevant CTA.

This is where you plug in a relevant call to action. Ask for a few minutes on their calendar for an exploratory call or for a referral to the best person within the company to speak to. For example, ask “Who would be the best person to speak with about this?” or “What is the best way to get 20 minutes on your calendar to discuss?”

Remember, the key is to write relevant emails to executives that are short and to the point and that help solve their challenges. You can also split test your emails, meaning you create two different versions and track which email works better. If you continue to split test your emails and follow up with prospects, you will find success.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Nick Tubis

Co-Founder of LiveVoice, which was acquired in 2017. Currently CMO at TSD Global, a large marketing and sales outsourcing company.

Sourced from Forbes

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Adweek Announces Its First Advisory Board, Featuring 24 Top Marketing, Media and Technology Executives

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Adweek has called in the big guns for a huge collaboration which could be an example of how the rest of us will work in the future.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Everyone in advertising knows Adweek, a bible for marketers. Adweek has published articles for the brand marketing ecosystem since 1979. Adweek’s coverage reaches an engaged audience of more than 6 million professionals across platforms including print, digital, events, podcasts, newsletters, social media and mobile apps.

Today, the publication announced the launch of the Adweek Advisory Board, made up of 24 of the most innovative and creative executives who are shaping the modern brand marketing ecosystem.

Adweek says they recognise the need to synthesise a diversity of opinions to maintain its position as a voice in the marketplace. “Our newly formed Advisory Board will provide us – and our audiences – with the thought leadership and expertise we all need to help navigate the complex and constantly shifting ecosystem of today’s marketing and media world,” said Adweek editorial director James Cooper. “Adweek’s ultimate goal each day is helping our readers stay ahead of the curve and do their jobs better.”

“I am excited to be partnering with Adweek and joining its Advisory Board,” said GE CMO Linda Boff. “With digital transformation built into our DNA, we are in an especially unique position to guide and advise Adweek and the business community it serves.”

The Advisory Board will meet regularly with Adweek’s senior editorial team at gatherings across the country to discuss the pressing issues of the day. Members will also be on hand to publish thought leadership columns, speak at Adweek events and provide Adweek with insight and analysis on an as-needed basis across all platforms.

“The times we operate in aren’t easy. The pressure to deliver is daunting for even the most experienced here,” said board member Colleen DeCourcy, chief creative officer for agency network Wieden + Kennedy. “When an organisation like Adweek consciously turns its efforts to developing our talent, I am all in. Collaboration feels like the thing we need right now. All boats rise with the tide.”

Adweek’s Advisory Board Members:

  • Marisa Thalberg, Global CMO, Taco Bell
  • Linda Boff, CMO, GE
  • Adrienne Lofton, SVP of Global Brand Management, Under Armour
  • Andrew Keller, Global Creative Director, Facebook Creative Shop
  • Cameron Clayton, GM of Watson Content and IoT, IBM
  • Jon Suarez-Davis, Chief Strategy Officer, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
  • Ben Lamm, CEO and Founder, Conversable and Hypergiant
  • Caroline Papadatos, SVP of Global Solutions, LoyaltyOne
  • Alicia Hatch, CMO, Deloitte Digital
  • Baiju Shah, Chief Strategy Officer, Accenture Interactive
  • Joel Stillerman, Chief Content Officer, Hulu
  • Colin Kinsella, CEO North America, Havas Media Group
  • Michelle Lee, Editor in Chief, Allure
  • Tiffany R. Warren, SVP and Chief Diversity Officer, Omnicom, and Founder and President, ADCOLOR
  • Susie Nam, COO, Droga5
  • David Sable, Global CEO, Y&R
  • Colleen DeCourcy, Chief Creative Officer, Wieden + Kennedy
  • Michael Dill, President and CEO, Match Marketing Group
  • Bonin Bough, Author and TV Host
  • Terrance Williams, CMO and President of Emerging Businesses, Nationwide
  • Kasha Cacy, CEO, UM U.S.
  • David Mondragon, CEO of Triton Automotive Group and Senior Partner, Motormindz
  • Linda Yaccarino, Chairman of Advertising and Client Partnerships, NBCUniversal
  • Nannette LaFond-Dufour, Global Chief Client Officer, McCann Worldgroup

To read further about Adweek’s Advisory Board initiative, click here 

 

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Advertising in Fashion Magazines is Dead to us Now

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Now? Fashion brands are meeting with social media influencers directly.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Hundreds of NY Fashion Week influencers were invited to a party specifically held to put them in front of brands that want some of the spotlight. The party was held by a company called Influence, which connects brands and influencers. Together, they create social campaigns that expand visibility and engage new audiences for brands. The influencer gets paid, and the brands get to reach audiences that they might not be able to access using other methods. Welcome to the “now” of fashion and brand marketing.

Influence is a sister company to the already-successful operation called Newswire. Newswire currently have an online portal that publishes thousands of press releases every day. Journalists and influencers can go straight to company news, by keyword or subject search. This means that they can get their news directly from the companies, rather than have the interaction brokered through a PR agency. This renders the traditional PR agency almost obsolete.

The way the PR industry is changing is similar to the way that fashion magazines are going. Teen magazines and fashion publications are no longer the huge, powerful entities that brokered deals between brands/fashion houses and their audiences. Now, it is the online fashion influencers who have huge sway with their fans, and brands can contact them directly. This circumvents the hugely expensive fashion magazines, whose circulations are falling dramatically.

As an example, a top YouTube fashion influencer is Chriselle Lim. Her channel is growing at a breakneck pace. Her videos reveal how to transform basic pieces of clothing into stylish apparel. Chriselle has support from global brands such as Target and Estee Lauder.

The change in the way brands and fashion are marketed has been incredibly rapid. Fashion magazines? Pah. Now Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are the place to put brand marketing spend.

But back to the party. The event hosted hundreds of NY Fashion Week Influencers at Manhattan’s chic Sixty Soho Hotel. Influencers and brands from across the globe arrived to share in networking and developing opportunities for campaign partnerships that strengthen an Influencer’s channel and widen content reach for brands. The party was also used to promote Influence.com itself. And it worked, because here you are, reading about this new company.

Said Director of Influencer Marketing, Magnolia Sevenler, “Whether you are an influencer or marketer, the Influence by Newswire platform provides a community to build your campaigns.”

According to Sevenler, the platform has been well-received from both marketers and creators for its simplicity and reach. “It’s exciting to see all the positive feedback…as we enter a new era of marketing, where micro-influencers can be rewarded for their passions and brands can reach new untapped audiences.”

The company has plans to expand its network and add additional features to enhance users’ experience. And it is doing this all because the fashion magazine industry is destined for a papery grave. It’s time to move on, people, and bring your marketing spend with you.

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Marketing Survey: Spontaneous Sex is the Best Kind

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Keep this in mind if you are marketing sexy products.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

What does a company that makes sex products do for their annual Valentine’s sales push? They do a survey, to find out how best to market to their customers. And here are the results.

Valentine’s Day, it seems, is starting to suck for everyone. Singles have made it their own anti-holiday, full of memes and proclamations about the commercialisation of the day. But what about couples? Is it all it’s really cracked up to be?

A company called K-Y undertook a survey to find out how to best market their sex products to customers. And it makes for depressing reading. What was once thought to be a romantic and sexy day has become an experience full of pressure and hype. Pressure to buy the right card, pick the sexiest lingerie and have the most mind-blowing sex of your life – and you only have one day to make it all happen.

According to the Love All 365 survey, half of Millennials feel they are missing out if they don’t have sex on Valentine’s Day, but more than 60% of them report that the sex doesn’t live up to the hype. That’s a lot of lead up for a big letdown.

The survey further illuminates the Valentine’s Day tension by revealing that while 82% of people are more likely to have sex with their partner on Valentine’s Day, 83% report that sex is best when it’s impulsive versus planned. Preparing for sex at Valentine’s Day is certainly a faux pas many couples are guilty of committing in spite of the fact that, as the statistics affirm, our preference is for spontaneity.

The good news is that 97% of couples report that having good sex with their partners makes them feel more connected.

“We don’t want couples saving their ‘sexy’ for special occasions, when great sex can and should happen any day of the year,” said Nadja Korner, Marketing Director of K-Y. “Good sex helps strengthen the relationship, so instead of putting all your romantic energy into nights like Valentine’s Day, surprise your partner with that special sexy something on an unexpected night. After all, the essence of pleasure is spontaneity.”

So if you are creating an advertising campaign using a sexy theme, keep the idea of spontaneous sex in mind. Especially if you are targeting Millennials. ■

 

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Targeting Teenagers with Your ads? Here are the Four Personas to Appeal to

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Academics have identified four distinct personas of social media user that teenagers describe as shaping how they behave on social media.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Young social media users are categorised as either acting like the Geek, the Internet Celebrity, the Victim or the Lurker depending on their levels of online activity and visibility, University of Sussex academics say.

The categorisations are based on interviews the researchers conducted with children aged between 10 and 15-years-old for a new book, Researching Everyday Childhoods, published by Bloomsbury last month.

The interviews revealed many youngsters were increasingly savvy about maintaining their privacy online, often being motivated to protect themselves by unpleasant past personal experiences or negative incidents that affected classmates.

Dr Liam Berriman, lecturer in digital humanities at the University of Sussex, said: “Our research found that concerns about staying safe online created an atmosphere of intense anxiety for young people, even if they had not directly experienced any problems themselves. The young people we spoke to felt a great weight of responsibility for their safety online and were often motivated by the concern of being labelled a victim.”

“While there has been a lot of negative media coverage around teenagers’ interaction with social media, our findings are more hopeful that teenagers are responsible users of social media, are very conscious of the dangers and make considerable efforts to protect themselves against those risks.”

Teenagers navigate between the desire to be praised and recognised online and anxieties over the risk of opening themselves up to criticism and trolling. Among the four personas is the Internet Celebrity who is able to best use the latest trends and increasingly values “visibility of the self” through Instagram, Snapchat, the selfie and YouTube vlogging.

The internet celebrity

But academics also identified how young people are experimenting with and enjoying invisibility online. They describe the Lurker as someone able to avoid peer dramas arising through platforms such as Facebook, whilst still engaging in fun peer activities such as stalking their favourite music bands online.

The lurker

The Geek, meanwhile, uses invisibility to anonymously share and promote their amateur media creations online, such as music videos or fan fiction writing. The academics described how the Geeks’ long hours of labour on projects risked parental concern that their behaviour was obsessive or addictive.

The geek

Professor Rachel Thomson, professor of childhood and youth studies at the University of Sussex, said, “What is distinctive about these active social media users was the entrepreneurial character of their practice, with ‘play’ re-envisaged as a form of economically rewarding work. By gaining an audience, young people are aware that they could capture advertising and corporate sponsorship. The dream is to ‘go viral’, establishing a career as a cultural creator.”

The research also highlights the risks contained in a world dominated by personal visibility with the Victim left to suffer personal exposure and shame following the creation and display of intimate material such as sexting and the loss of control of this material.

The victim

The Victim’s high visibility is often out of their control with their presence and heightened without their consent as private material is extracted from them and exchanged under false premises.

This can vary from the frustration of being tagged in photographs and the creation of an unflattering digital footprint through the activities of others to the more invasive techniques of fraping, where a person’s online identity is hijacked without their permission, or sharing of intimate photographs.

Dr Berriman said, “These examples reveal the impossibility of non- participation in the world of social media. A teenager does not necessarily have to create an online persona, it is something that can be created by others.”

This is great food for thought for anyone trying to catch the attention of teenagers online. You may even need to consider four different approaches when targeting the teen market. Thanks, science!

 

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5 email marketing trends to watch in 2018

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What’s on the horizon for email marketers this year? Columnist Scott Heimes shares his predictions on the email marketing trends that will take shape in 2018.

The new year is here, which means many brands are looking for new ways to spice up their marketing strategy. That means considering changes to everyone’s favorite channel, email.

Email was still brands’ preferred medium to communicate with customers in 2017 and will continue to be so well into the future. Still, 2018 may hold some surprises for the 40-year-old communications standard that marketers should be aware of.

Sit back, relax and ring in the new year with a few new — and old — email trends that can make your marketing strategy stand out.

1. Personalization through lists

Personalization is nothing new, but it’s poised to go into overdrive in 2018. No, we’re not talking about customizing subject lines — that’s no longer enough. What we’re talking about is list segmentation.

List segmentation has been around for a while, but it can up your personalization game by placing your users into lists based on user demographics, interests and other rich data available to you and your brand. This can make it easier for your organization to send information to recipients that’s relevant to their interests, increasing the chances that your message will be opened.

Keep an eye out for list segmentation in 2018, especially as standards evolve and organizations become more familiar with the methodology.

[Read the full article on MarTech Today.]

By 

Scott Heimes serves as Chief Marketing Officer at SendGrid, where he is responsible for the company’s brand strategy, driving demand for its solutions and leading global marketing operations. Scott oversees corporate marketing, demand generation, corporate communications, partnerships and alliances, international expansion and SendGrid’s community development team.

Sourced from Marketing Land

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You Might be Paying too Much for ads on Google and Bing

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Before you dish out money to bid for a top-ranked ad position on a search engine, you may want to pause and make sure it’s actually going to pay off.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

New research out of Binghamton University, State University of New York suggests that instead of just spending to get that top spot, advertisers should be considering other factors as well to ensure they are getting the best results from their sponsored search advertising campaigns.

Sponsored search advertising involves paying search engines, like Google and Bing, to bid for placements on the search results pages for specific keywords and terms. The ads appear in sponsored sections, separate from the organic search results, on those pages.

“The common belief in sponsored search advertising is that you should buy the top ad position to get more clicks, because that will lead to more sales,” said Binghamton University Assistant Professor of Marketing Chang Hee Park. “But the fee for the top position could be larger than the expected sales you’d get off that top position.”

Park, with the help of Binghamton University Professor of Marketing Manoj Agarwal, analysed data collected from a search engine and created a model that can forecast the number of clicks advertisers could expect in sponsored search markets based on four factors:

  • Rank in the sponsored listings
  • Website quality
  • Brand equity
  • Selling proposition

The model gives advertisers a way to quantify the expected clicks they’d get by adjusting these four factors, while also taking into consideration how their competitors are managing these four factors. This could enable advertisers to find a perfect blend of the four factors to ensure they are getting the most out of what they are paying for their ad positions.

It may also indicate that they should be spending more money to bolster their brand or website rather than amplifying their offers in top ad positions.

“Using this model, you may find that paying less for a lower ad position while investing more in improving your website is more effective than spending all of that money strictly on securing top ad positions,” said Agarwal.

This applies especially if your competitor has a poorer-quality website, but is spending more than you on securing top ad positions.

Their model found that poor-quality advertisers that are ranked higher in ad positions drive consumers back to the search results page, leading consumers to then click on advertisers in lower ad positions to find what they are looking for.

In contrast, they also found that a highly-ranked good-quality advertiser results in significantly less clicks for all the advertisers ranked below them.

“It’s more likely that in the top position, all advertisers being equal, you’ll get more clicks. But depending on these four factors, as well as the quality of your competitors, you may find that you’ll get more clicks in the second or the third position,” said Park.

“Conceptually, this is not a new idea, but now the model can help determine this by accounting for multiple factors at play at the same time.”

Advertisers aren’t the only ones who can benefit from this research.

Park and Agarwal’s model found that simply reordering the listed advertisers could result in significant changes in overall click volume (the total number of clicks across all advertisers) for search engines.

“Because they often charge on a pay-per-click model, search engines can now simulate which ordering of advertisers in a sponsored search market results in the most overall clicks and, therefore, most revenue” said Park. “Search engines may want to consider charging advertisers in a way that gives the search engine more flexibility in determining the order in which the ads in sponsored sections are displayed.”

 

 

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Small Business Email Marketing Trends to Watch for In 2018

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By Dave Charest 

2017 is in the books.

But, as you know, a business owner’s work is never done.

Now it’s time to step into the year ahead and look for your next great opportunity.

Hopefully, the holiday season has allowed you to put enough wood in the shed, so to speak, so you can take a bit of time to reflect on the year and determine your next move.

Where should you focus your energy to make the most of your time?

First, consider how your customer has continued to evolve.

Today’s consumers expect your business to provide experiences tailored to their needs, interests, and habits.

52 percent of consumers say they’re likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize communications to them.

If your marketing messages aren’t relevant and easily read on mobile devices, you can expect consumers to move on.

It’s now more critical than ever to get the right message to the right person at the right time.

With that in mind, how can you expect email marketing to help you reach your goals in 2018?

Here are three areas you can expect to come to the forefront for small businesses and their use of email marketing.

1. Real insight from data to make better decisions

There’s no shortage of data available these days. Access isn’t the problem; it’s making sense of all that data in a way that’s beneficial to your business that’s important.

Recommended for YouWebcast, January 24th: Cold Email That Converts: Why Message-Persona Fit is the Key to Success

It also goes beyond opens and clicks to actions and interests. It allows you to understand who your best customers are and get carefully crafted messages to them based on what you know and what they do.

Expect to see email marketing providers like Constant Contact looking for ways to give you more proactive insights that allow you to make smarter decisions in addition to what’s available today.

2. More personalization for better results

When you think of personalization, you may think of adding a person’s name in an email. Yes, a person’s name is an essential element in any form of marketing. Beyond that what we’re talking about is timely and relevant messages. It’s about using the data to get more relevant information and offers to your customers.

Expect your email marketing provider to help you better segment your contacts and do so more efficiently.

3. Simple automation to save you time

Automation is where the two previous trends come together to allow you to do more business in your sleep.

For example, if someone expresses interest in a product or service by clicking a link in your email, you can automatically send a follow-up email or series of messages knowing that these emails will be relevant and lead you closer to a sale.

Click segmentation combined with an autoresponder series creates a potent one-two punch that works on autopilot so you can tend to other areas of your business.

Expect to see small businesses embracing this trend as email service providers make it even easier to do so.

But won’t automated messages make my marketing feel impersonal?

If you think relationships are still the backbone of your business, you’re right. You may be thinking that the methods above may feel impersonal, be too complicated to start or be too costly. The truth is just the opposite.

Using these methods above allows you to take the wow experiences you’re already creating for your customers, whether they be offline or online, and make them easy to extend in ways you could never do alone with your limited time. And the costs are a small fraction of the return you can expect from the time invested.

Are you ready to embrace these email marketing trends in 2018?

  • Real insight from data to make better decisions
  • More personalization for better results
  • Simple automation to save you time

By Dave Charest 

View full profile ›
Read more at https://www.business2community.com/email-marketing/small-business-email-marketing-trends-watch-2018-01989576

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