The Future of Email: What To Expect

January 22, 2021/in Articles, Blog, Directors /by Terry Becker

Although one of the oldest forms of online marketing, email marketing is consistently one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies there is, and it will continue to be so well into the future. Because of this, it’s worth thinking about the future of email in order to begin adjusting your email marketing strategy accordingly. The following are some of the things you should expect from the future of email:

1. More Visual

While emails used to be more text-based, this is quickly changing even now. Besides the content itself, the email interface will become more visual as well. For example, contact photos will become more prominent, attachments will become previewable without having to open an email, and email apps themselves will be more visually customizable for the user.

2. More Interactive

Smartphones provide users with a lot of interactivity options due to their touchscreens. It won’t be long until users will be able to interact with their inbox by picking up, deleting, and grouping emails within a 3D space.

Interactive Email Marketing Trends

3. More User Control

Every facet of a user’s online experience will be providing users with more control in the future, including their email. They’ll be able to organize their main email interface by choosing to see their favorite contacts first and by customizing their most important folders or labels. Although this could limit the ability of advertisers to reach users, it could also help your emails become more prominent amidst all the spam that recipients once received.

4. Potential Payment Email Models

Consumers get tons of spam on a daily basis because emails barely cost spammers anything to send. As a result, some kind of paid email model may be implemented. Sending emails would only cost cents or fractions of a cent, but it would limit the ability of spammers to send out mass amounts of emails on a regular basis because the cost would add up.

5. Automatic Organization

It was only recently that Gmail introduced their tab-based email system to organize user inboxes into folders. This was a huge change from the basic full view list inbox that all email apps used beforehand. This type of automatic inbox organization system is only going to get smarter and more intuitive in the future.

6. Content Will Be Rated And Analyzed

Email apps will have the ability to rate and analyze the content of a user’s emails. This will allow them to extract important information. For example, if they’ve ordered airplane tickets, then the app will be able to identify flight information from the email and display that.

7. Emails Will Be Read Out Loud

Voice assistants like Alexa are already becoming quite popular. It’s only a matter of time before users can have their emails read out to them – or have them summarized out loud.

These are some of the things that you can expect from the future of email that will no doubt have you rethinking parts of your email marketing strategy in the years to come.

Three Videos Every B2B Website Should Have

January 18, 2021/in Articles, B2B Marketing, Directors, Media, Video Marketing /by Mark Beebe

Research shows that relevant, compelling content is a key ingredient for making your website stand out. While some websites may have great landing pages, they may lack other types of content. If you want your B2B website to beat the competition and increase sales with an effective video marketing strategy then you should include these 3 video types.

Visual is rapidly becoming the most effective technique in the web marketing mix. Video content can increase your online traffic by more than 40%, as it adds personality, digestibility, and context to your website. Here are three types of video you should include in your website in order to increase search engine visibility.

1. Customer case studies

A great way to market your business is through word-of-mouth from satisfied customers or business associates. Referrals enhance the element of trust that potential clients are looking for in a business. To create a case study video, request some of your satisfied customers to create a case study video, where they can describe the services or products that you offer and express their satisfaction. A case study video could convince your undecided leads that your business is the right fit for them.

[Read about Integrating Story Branding With Your B2B Marketing Strategy]

2. Your team in action

You can increase your prospects by visually portraying how your company performs a service. Potential clients want to know if you have the resources and the expertise to meet their expectations, and you can prove this via video. If you provide manufacturing services, for example, you can capture how specific machinery works. If you’re a marketing agency, you can post a video demonstrating how your team goes from brainstorming ideas to producing your final product. For potential clients, the sight of your employees in action offers a glimpse inside your business.

3. Instructional videos or tutorials

One way to demonstrate your expertise to potential customers is to produce instructional content. Create visual cues on how to carry out a certain service related to what your business does for other businesses. For example, if your company provides home decoration services, you can produce a video explaining the remodeling process. You can demonstrate how your crew handles equipment for the job, as well as “before and after” images of a remodeled house.

Every B2B website should include compelling video content to capture the interest of prospective business partners. These days, the majority of online users would rather watch videos than read about a product or service. Capitalize on this powerful but affordable medium in order to drive leads and increase sales.

Why Call To Action Phrases Are So Important In Inbound Marketing?

January 15, 2021/in Articles, Call To Action Phrases, Directors /by Debbie Szwast

Call to action phrases seem so innocuous. They are just a few words on a link or a button. Yet, CTAs are some of the most powerful and important elements on your website to support your Inbound Marketing efforts. Without them, your conversion rate is not going to be anywhere close to where it should be. Here’s why.

The Simple Truth About Conversions and CTAs

A conversion happens when you get someone to respond in a desired way. Let’s say you want a website visitor to sign up for a newsletter. When you get an anonymous visitor to provide a name and email address in exchange for the newsletter, you have converted that person into a lead. That person has just entered your sales funnel.

How do you get the anonymous visitor to sign up for the newsletter? With a successful call-to-action, that’s how.

CTAs come in so many different forms. Most are phrases printed on a button that is easy to tap or click. Here are a few call-to-action phrases that might be familiar:

“Read More”
“Get Our Newsletter”
“Share on Twitter”
“Add to Cart”
“Subscribe”
“Download Immediately”

50 Powerful Call-to-Action Phrases

Ensuring Your Calls-to-Action Receive Attention

Calls-to-action are critical for conversion success. But, not every CTA is a success. In fact, many aren’t really that noticeable, so visitors just skim right past them. For your calls-to-action to be successful, they must be noticeable, enticing and well-defined.

Placement is critical for a successful CTA.

Put more than one on a page. Putting a single CTA on a page means lost opportunities for conversion. Multiple CTAs offer more chances to get a visitor to convert. But, don’t put too many or the visitor will get choice paralysis.
Be sure to have CTAs on every page. Your website is a critical part of your marketing and you need to give visitors as many chances as possible to convert.
Make your CTAs count. Most users skim a page from top to bottom. They will glance from left to right at the top and maybe once again about half way down the page. Your CTAs need to be somewhere in this visual path to grab attention.

Design is another item to consider for a successful CTA:

Make sure your CTA is recognizable. If it just blends into the background or uses generic language, your visitor will skim right past it. Choosing well-worded call-to-action phrases makes all the difference.
Make it jump out visually. You need to have negative space around your CTA. You need to select a color that pops out. Orange and red are popular. But, the real secret is contrast.
Make it very clear. Generic call-to-action phrases like “Next” do not give a reader any clue as to what is happening next. “Finish Subscribing to Our Newsletter” gives the reader a clear picture of what clicking on that CTA will actually do.

When you optimize the calls-to-action on your website, you will start to see your conversion rates rise. Keep tweaking and you can get even more.

Why Are Buyer Personas So Important?

January 11, 2021/in Articles, Attraction Marketing, Inbound Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Creating buyer personas is an essential part of an inbound marketing strategy because they help define your target audience and help you tailor your advertising towards that audience. When developing content, consistently referring back to the attributes of the buyer persona will help ensure that the content resonates with that audience. Buyer personas are an important part to attraction marketing.

Establishing a buyer persona can be a creative process as well, as it encourages marketers to think back to their childhood mindset and generate imaginary people. Of course these imaginary thoughts are far more sophisticated now, and are used to create what an individual that represents your target audience.

B2B Branding Tips For The New Buyer

January 7, 2021/in Articles, B2B Marketing, Brand Development, Directors All /by Dan Gartlan

Over the past few years, B2B business has seen a dramatic shift in the decision makers involved in purchasing. Now more than ever before Millennials are at the forefront of the company decisions especially when it comes to purchasing. According to a survey conducted by Google 2015 was the first year that nearly half of all B2B purchase influencers were Millennials. This shift impacts not only the B2B branding message but where that message is displayed as well since most Millennials spend a majority of their day online.

One of the biggest differences between Millennials and decision makers in the past is how they evaluate and research potential purchases. The same traditional advertising that worked on baby boomers is not going to work on Millennials and chances are they’re much further down in the purchase funnel before they even contact you. Thanks to the Internet and social media, decision makers do their own research on what they need, want, and whom they want to work with.

With more than 87 percent of online Millennials using Facebook and other social media sites, it’s imperative that your business has a strong social media and online presence however it’s not as simple as setting up pages and scheduling out posts. Millennials are looking for brands that are approachable, easy to navigate and as odd as this sounds more human. Even in this hyper-connected world people still want to be connected with real people, especially in B2B transactions. The most successful B2B companies have utilized their social media pages to reach out directly to their customers and build a sense of community with their brand and customers. It’s extremely important to assure your audience that you or your team of people will be there for them and that you can solve some of their pain points.

Read more on Using Your Brand Story To Reach Millennials In Business.

So, how does a brand convey all of this to their audience? Here are 4 things you should be talking about in your B2B branding:

Have a Purpose

Many argue that this is more geared to B2C businesses but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Showing your company culture and your core values, or the reason why you do what you do is just as important in B2B marketing. Millennials more than any other audience are looking to work with companies that leave a positive impact on the world or those that have a great story about how they started. Your brand values such as your mission statement and communication style will help create a personality and purpose behind your brand.

Read more on improving your B2B customer experience.

Knowledge

Potential customers are looking to solve a problem and they need to be confident that you will be able to solve it for them. Showing that you’re an authoritative source is one of the most important parts of your B2B branding.

Service

B2B buyers want someone that’s going to still make them feel that they have a 1 to 1 relationship even if they never communicate with you directly. Show them that you’re a company with real people who are willing to go the extra mile to get the job done.

Dependability

Showing that you can be depended on will take your brand messaging far. B2B buyers need to know that they can depend on you to get the job done so they can focus on other parts of their business. They don’t want to feel that they need to micromanage your work.

This generation is looking to be proud of who they purchase from. Today’s world is so much more transparent and connected and Millennials are not only used to that they expect you to be as well. It’s important that they are proud of who they buy from. By using ‘story branding’ companies can set a tone and feel for who they are and why they do what they do. With buyers getting inundated with so many screens and messages, stories help keep your B2B branding clear to your audience. The story with the strongest messaging that delivers an authentic feeling will stand out from the crowd. At the end of the day, B2B buyers are still, in fact, people and people love a good story.

Different Types Of Content Marketing For Lead Generation

January 4, 2021/in Articles, Content Marketing, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

“CONTENT IS KING.” It’s a phrase we have all heard before. But today, especially, it couldn’t be more true. Content, at its core, is what is essentially going to draw prospects to your brand. It is what makes you valuable. What others want to share and recommend. And it is the essence of what Inbound Attraction Marketing is all about. The trick is this: making the experience of your content one that will delight your readers and visitors and keep them coming back for more. Read more

5 Marketing Tactics You Should Be Using in 2021

December 30, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy /by Mark Beebe

Over the course of the year, businesses will implement various marketing tactics, some of which are hot, new marketing trends, others that have already been proven to be effective. However, Some marketing tactics that began in 2020 will still work in 2021. Here are new marketing trends that will a good idea for 2021.

1. Keep Producing Video Content

At this point in time, video content should be a major component of your content marketing strategy. According to recent studies, half of all American Internet users watch video content online every day, whether it’s on their computers or on their phones. Invest in pre-recorded videos as well as live videos that are mobile-friendly to continue reaching a larger audience.

2. Add Chatbots To Your Website

Getting your visitors to engage and interact with your website is vital to maintaining their interest (and keeping that bounce rate low). Chatbots have become an incredibly helpful feature for visitors over the past few years. The presence of a chatbot allows a visitor to ask questions or for assistance in real time instead of having to email a company and wait for who knows how long to hear back. Implementing a chatbot will make your website experience much more convenient for your visitors and will prevent them from getting frustrated.

Why Your Website Redesign Would Benefit From An Inbound Marketing Strategy

3. Curate User-Generated Content

One of the most important elements of brand perception is authenticity. If your brand doesn’t feel authentic, it will hurt your reputation. One way to build your authenticity is to leverage user-generated content. There’s nobody that consumers trusts more than other consumers, after all. Produce video testimonials and set up contests to promote the creation of user-generated content (such as Instagram photo contests) that you can use to build your authenticity.

4. Focus On Personalization

Personalization has been important to customers for years now, and this won’t change in 2019. Personalizing your marketing will help you stand out and will make it easier for your audience to engage with you on a more personal level. It’s also become much easier to personalize your marketing than it’s ever been due to the ability to collect and analyze purchase history data, consumer behavior data, and more. At this point, there’s simply no excuse not to leverage personalization.

5. Employ Best Data Privacy Practices

The GDPR passed in Europe in 2018, which put into place numerous regulations regarding the collection of private user data. While such regulations aren’t yet in place in the U.S., it’s only a matter of time before they will be. As a result, you should begin taking steps to ensure that the data you’re collecting is secure and that you’ll be able to follow any new data privacy regulations that may pass.

Not all established marketing tactics or current marketing trends will be useful next year. However, some certainly will be. These are some of the marketing tactics that you should implement into your 2019 marketing strategy.

5 Creative Marketing Solutions That Will Work In 2021

December 28, 2020/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy, News & Insights /by Mark Beebe

Solutions come in every flavor. Every client has different pain, and it’s an agency’s job to seek out and offer solutions. Once the pain has been established, the solution is what will solve or compound the problem. Great agencies can put creative thoughts into a campaign and make it memorable. Here are 5 creative marketing solutions that will resonate with the consumer in 2021.

Tips To Make Your Email Marketing Program Most Effective

December 24, 2020/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Direct Marketing, Directors /by Debbie Szwast

About 124.5 billion business emails are sent and received each day. With this high volume, it’s crucial to make your emails stand out. A smart email program provides opportunities to effectively communicate with your customers and prospects, leading to increased sales and revenue growth. Segmenting—by target audience, relevant message and place in the buying cycle—is key. In fact, research shows that 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales because of lack of segmentation. And Lyris’ Annual Email Optimizer Report found that 14.30% of respondents experienced better deliverability and greater revenue when segmenting their email marketing. Read more

Top 7 Packaging Design Resources

December 21, 2020/in Articles, Brand Development, Directors /by Mark Beebe

Today’s package designers have such a wide variety of tools, technologies, and materials available that they can create just about anything they envision. Add in digital printing and their amazing design options become available to everyone. If you are looking for packaging design resources, here are 7 to get you started.

Packaging World

The world of packaging continues to evolve. To keep up with the latest happenings in the industry, you need to keep in touch with Packaging World. They offer daily articles on a variety of topics about what is hot, what materials are on top, and the leading inspirations designers have today.

The Die Line

Do you want to see the latest design inspirations from students all the way to big corporations? The Die Line is definitely the place to start. You get access to a packaging directory as well as a complete library of designs. There are new designs being added all the time, so you have a wealth of inspiration at your fingertips.

BXP (Brand Experience)

Packaging design comes together at BXP. It features design inspiration from the entire globe along with industry headlines and a fully stocked directory of packaging design resources. You get to meet some of the brightest talent in the design world. It is a place for inspiration and trends.

Seven Steps To Launching A Packaging Brand

Packaging of the World

Packaging of the World is like an art gallery of package design. You get to see some of the best design work from professionals around the globe. The best part is that you can filter the gallery based on exactly what you want. You can search by country, category and even most popular.

Retail Design Blog

The Retail Design Blog from the Creative Craft Laboratory brings selected retail packaging designs to the world. You get to see exactly what designers have in mind in a visually stunning presentation. The blog is updated every few days with even more designs. That makes it a resource you can return to time and time again.

Packaging Design Archive

If you are looking for a place to do package design research, the Packaging Design Archive is the place to start. You have the opportunity to see a wide range of designs in any number of presentations. You can filter by typography, shape, design aesthetics, materials, and environmental category, among others.

Brand New

The design firm Under Construction offers up Brand New. This features a true library of packaging designs. You get to see the latest inspirations. But, what makes this site extra special is the fact that you get a thorough review of many designs, which helps you know why a particular design works (or not).

All of these packaging design resources will give you inspiration, news, updates, and design help with any packaging need you might have.