Is Mass Marketing Dead?

It’s not hard to imagine a future where interactive marketing messages are nearly inescapable. As advertising increasingly gets incorporated into our every device, brands will have even more opportunities to interact with consumers in every aspect of their lives – and will tailor their messages accordingly. As marketing gets customized to consumers’ particular tastes and interests, it’s worth asking: What future is there for mass marketing?

The Wall Street Journal went so far as publishing a farewell to mass marketing recently. The article envisioned a future in which advertisers will pinpoint the exact moments and needs that users have and supply consumers with the solutions they are looking for in real time. In other words, the more ways we have to reach the masses, the less relevant mass marketing could become.

We’re already witnessing a mass trend toward customization in marketing, aided by new software packages, social media and other technology. But traditional mass marketing hasn’t gone away, either. Marketers won’t stop trying to reach large swaths of consumers in broad geographical areas any time soon, and they’ll probably continue using some of the same methods for doing so.

Online Marketing Strategy

Consider Live-Tweeting At Your Next Event

Live-tweeting can boost your eventYou put so much effort into both attending and planning memorable events. Why not leverage those experiences to your advantage? Live-tweeting allows anyone from stakeholders at their desks to customers on the train to follow the highlights of an event. It will not only prompt attendees to keep the conversation going, but extend the life of the event.

Live tweets are another layer of event-related content that helps marketers expand their audience and increase influence in their industry. It’s one of the best ways for people to engage with your business after an event, and you can attract new followers and drive people to your website.

Social Media

How To Define Your Brand Personality

How to define your brand personalityDid you know your brand has a personality? At least, it should. And it’s better to define it before someone else does. A given brand’s personality is a set of human characteristics that are relatable to your target audience – just like a person. It’s an important way marketers can control how customers view brands and organizations.

Defining a brand’s personality does require some thought on how you want to be seen. It should be a reflection of your organization’s personality as well as your ideal customers. If they are young, edgy and urban, then you will market to them differently than you would to affluent, settled suburbanites.

Successful brand personalities also frequently tap into our fantasies, whether to connect us with the fierce athletes of Nike or the adventuresome rebels of Harley Davidson.

Online Marketing Strategy

Marketing Email Subject Lines That Work

Marketing email subject lines that workMarketers hoping to entice prospects to open, read, click or act on emails face the need for a delicate balance. How do you write a subject line that’s urgent but informative? Enticing, not off-putting?

Online email marketing consultancy Phrasee studied the click rates and open rates of about 700 emails. It found that even very subtle differences in word choice can have a major impact on the likelihood of the recipient taking the action you want. While the right phrasing in email marketing helps increase business sales, language that suggests boasting or too much urgency can backfire on marketers. Even minor grammatical distractions like too many commas or capitalized words can land an email in the trash folder.

Email Marketing

7 Things To Include In Your Lead Generation Forms

Lead Generation Forms

The last stop on the journey to lead conversion, your website’s lead generation form is a crucial step in the process of creating prospects for your business. Whether it converts visitors to subscribers or puts prospects in touch with your business, there are key ingredients any form should have to optimize its success rate.

Do all of your lead conversion forms contain these seven elements?

1. Social logins: Social logins can make it fast and easy for visitors to sign up for content access with essentially one click.

2. Testimonials: In addition to compelling copy, Business 2 Community explains that marketers can boost their credibility through testimonials because they introduce you and your business as an expert resource. They function as compliments to the copy on your landing page, which entices visitors to provide their contact details for further interaction.

Lead Generation

How To Create A Content Calendar

How to create a content calendar

Whether weekly, monthly or quarterly, every marketer should have a content calendar to keep them on task. Doing so not only helps marketers organize content more efficiently, but it will help you formulate a strategy for connecting with your target audience, customers and other stakeholders. A calendar can include upcoming campaigns, product launches and social media pushes, in addition to important publishing dates. Most important, the calendar is a shareable resource that will help your team visualize how blogs and other content will be distributed throughout the year.

What you need
You content calendar will highlight industry events and other important dates, telling you what to schedule and when. Either a common software system or a free online tool like Google Calendar will be necessary to alert you when to line up content based on your marketing plan. As a rule, it should provide reminders of when to start and finish each piece of content with ample time to publish.

Everyone on your team will use it to plan together and share updates. In Google Calendar, you can invite new members by clicking Share this Calendar under the My Calendars setting. There are also permission settings to help ensure there aren’t too many cooks in the kitchen. And you can all share those calendars with one another for a single-screen view of everything that’s going on so you can coordinate more easily.

Content Marketing, Online Marketing Strategy

What’s Missing From Your LinkedIn Profile?

Whats missing from your LinkedIn profileWe tend to think of LinkedIn as an online resume, but marketers should consider it as an important social media tool and an integral part of any program.

LinkedIn has more than 300 million members, and the membership is continuing to rise. So be sure you’re taking advantage of the many different ways your LinkedIn profile can help you do your job.

Does your profile include these strategic marketing components?

Headshot: This should be a professional image that expresses both you and your brand.

Headline: As Business 2 Community points out, your headline appears in search results and is the first thing that people see. For that reason, be sure it includes keywords to help others find it. Think of something enticing that will help you stand out.

Social Media

3 Common Pay-Per-Click Pitfalls

3 pitfalls to avoid in PPC

The abundance of information on pay-per-click solutions can make it hard to know whether each new development will help you improve your overall PPC revenue – or leave you spinning your wheels. Even seasoned marketers and PPC managers struggle with figuring out which trends will help them boost ad revenue through website traffic.

If you face one of three common pitfalls, you are not alone:

Pay-Per-Click