Email Marketing Customer Journey in the AI Era

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In the rapidly evolving world of digital marketing, email marketing remains a cornerstone of effective customer engagement. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), email marketing has transcended traditional practices, leveraging AI to revolutionize how businesses interact with customers throughout their journey. From initial awareness to loyal advocacy, AI-driven tools are transforming the email marketing customer journey by enhancing efficiency, personalization, and predictive capabilities.

The AI-Enhanced Email Marketing Customer Journey

Awareness: Capturing Attention with AI-Driven Campaigns

The first stage of the email marketing journey focuses on making an impression. AI excels by analyzing user data to determine optimal send times, predict resonant content for different segments, and craft personalized messages that boost open rates. Tools like Mailchimp and Salesforce leverage AI to help marketers send emails that are not only noticed but also welcomed. Additionally, advanced segmentation enables micro-targeting using demographic, behavioral, and psychographic data, ensuring each message is highly relevant to its recipient.

Read more about: 6 Email Marketing Tips (Expert’s Advice)

Consideration: Personalized Content at Scale

Email Marketing Customer Journey

Once you’ve captured attention, the next step is nurturing interest. AI-powered systems track user interactions and behaviors, tailoring content to meet each recipient’s specific needs. Previously unthinkable, this level of personalization at scale is now achievable through advanced machine-learning algorithms. These tools refine content recommendations and adapt messaging strategies, dynamically adjusting email content in real time based on user actions, like browsing a product or service.

Read more about: 6 Types of Behavioral Data That Can Be Used For Segmentation

Decision: Predictive Analytics for Timely Offers

When a customer is on the cusp of making a decision, timing and relevance are crucial. AI’s predictive analytics come into play, forecasting the right moment to send a persuasive email that converts. By analyzing past purchase behavior and engagement metrics, AI tools can trigger emails with offers that are hard to ignore, precisely when the customer is most likely to make a purchase. This can include special promotions, limited-time offers, or exclusive previews that are tailored to the individual’s previous interactions with the brand.

Retention: Keeping Them Engaged

After the sale, the focus shifts to retention. AI helps maintain interest and loyalty by automating follow-up emails, sending renewal reminders, or offering personalized discounts based on the customer’s purchase history. Predictive models identify at-risk customers, enabling proactive engagement to prevent churn. Automated re-engagement campaigns can reignite interest by recommending products similar to those previously purchased or by offering special incentives for feedback and reviews.

Read more about: Up Your Email Engagement: Consumer-Oriented Strategies

Advocacy: Encouraging Loyal Customers to Become Brand Advocates

Email Marketing

The final stage of the email marketing journey turns satisfied customers into advocates. AI tools analyze feedback and interaction patterns to identify potential advocates. Personalized campaigns thank customers for their loyalty and encourage them to share positive experiences online, which expands brand reach organically. These campaigns may include referral bonuses, prompts for user-generated content, or invitations to exclusive events—all aiming to build a stronger brand community.

Actionable Strategies for Leveraging AI in Email Marketing Customer Journey Optimization

To fully leverage AI in your email marketing strategy, consider the following:

  • Integrate AI tools that analyze data across customer touchpoints to gain a holistic view of the customer journey.
  • Employ AI-driven personalization to tailor messages based on user behavior, preferences, and predictive insights.
  • Use predictive analytics to optimize timing and content, ensuring that emails are sent when users are most receptive.
  • Automate routine tasks to focus on strategic decision-making and creative aspects of email marketing.
  • Continuously measure the effectiveness of AI implementations and adjust strategies based on real-time feedback and analytics.

Conclusion

AI is reshaping email marketing and setting new standards for customer interactions. By embracing AI-driven automation, personalization, and predictive analytics, marketers can create campaigns that are both efficient and deeply resonant at every stage of the customer journey. As we advance into the AI era, integrating these technologies into email marketing strategies isn’t just advantageous—it’s essential.

Multi-Channel Content Marketing Plan for Maximum Impact

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Why a Multi-Channel Content Marketing Plan Matters in 2025

In today’s fragmented digital landscape, a single-channel approach no longer cuts it. A content marketing plan that spans multiple platforms ensures your brand meets audiences where they are—whether on social media, blogs, email, or video. According to Semrush, brands using 3+ channels see 2.5x higher engagement than those relying on one.

But how do you create a cohesive strategy without spreading resources too thin? Let’s break it down.

Step 1: Define SMART Goals for Your Content Marketing Plan

Start by aligning your content marketing plan with business objectives. Use the SMART framework:

  • Specific: “Increase organic traffic by 30% in Q4.”
  • Measurable: Track progress with tools like Google Analytics.
  • Achievable: Allocate budget for SEO and paid ads.
  • Relevant: Focus on channels where your audience spends time.
  • Time-bound: Set quarterly milestones.

Beak down your goals into smaller, actionable tasks. For example, if your goal is to increase organic traffic, focus on creating 2-3 high-quality blog posts per month targeting long-tail keywords. Additionally, ensure your goals are aligned with your overall business strategy. For instance, if your company is launching a new service, your content marketing plan should include promotional content to support that launch.

Step 2: Understand Your Audience and Buyer Personas

Before creating content, you need to know who you’re speaking to. Develop detailed buyer personas to guide your strategy:

  • Demographics: Age, location, income level.
  • Pain Points: What challenges do they face?
  • Content Preferences: Do they prefer blogs, videos, or infographics?

Use surveys, social media polls, and analytics data to refine your personas. Tools like HubSpot’s Make My Persona can help you create detailed profiles.  Use surveys, social media polls, and analytics data to refine your personas. Tools like HubSpot’s Make My Persona can help you create detailed profiles. Additionally, consider conducting interviews with your existing customers to gain deeper insights into their needs and preferences. 

Step 3: Audit Existing Content and Channels

Before launching new efforts, review what’s working:

  1. Analyze top-performing posts.
  2. Identify gaps (e.g., no video content despite high demand).
  3. Map content to buyer journey stages (awareness, consideration, decision).

Learn more by reading: Want to Get Valuable Buyers? The Key is the “Ideal” Buyer Persona

Need help auditing? Read our step-by-step walkthrough white book: Creating Buyer Personas For Your Business

Use tools like Screaming Frog or SEMrush to conduct a technical SEO audit and identify broken links, duplicate content, or missing meta tags. Additionally, analyze your competitors’ content to identify opportunities for differentiation. For example, if your competitors are focusing heavily on blog posts, consider creating video content to stand out.

Step 4: Tailor Content for Each Platform

Each platform demands unique content formats:

Repurpose content across platforms. For example, turn a blog post into a LinkedIn article, an Instagram carousel, and an email newsletter. Additionally, consider the timing of your posts. For instance, LinkedIn posts perform best during business hours, while Instagram posts may perform better in the evenings or on weekends.

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Step 5: Create a Content Calendar

A well-organized content calendar ensures consistency and helps you stay on track. Include:

  • Publishing dates.Multi-Channel Content Marketing Plan
  • Content themes (e.g., seasonal real estate trends).
  • Platform-specific campaigns.

Use tools like Trello or Asana to collaborate with your team and assign tasks for each piece of content. Additionally, plan for seasonal content in advance. For example, create holiday-themed posts or year-end review articles well ahead of time to ensure they’re ready to go when the time comes.

Step 6: Optimize for SEO and Engagement

SEO is the backbone of any successful content marketing plan. Focus on:

  • Keyword research: Use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to find high-volume, low-competition keywords.
  • On-page SEO: Optimize meta titles, descriptions, and headers.
  • Internal linking: Guide readers to related content (e.g., SEO Tips for Your Websites).

Use schema markup to enhance your search engine visibility. For example, add FAQ schema to your blog posts to increase the chances of appearing in featured snippets. Additionally, focus on creating high-quality backlinks by reaching out to industry influencers or guest posting on reputable websites.

Step 7: Track and Optimize Performance

Use tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, or HubSpot to:

  • Monitor traffic sources.
  • Measure conversion rates.
  • A/B test headlines and CTAs.

Set up custom dashboards in Google Analytics to track key metrics like bounce rate, time on page, and goal completions. Additionally, conduct regular performance reviews to identify trends and areas for improvement. For example, if you notice that video content is driving more engagement, consider allocating more resources to video production.

Step 8: Iterate and Scale

Regularly update your content marketing plan based on data. Conduct quarterly reviews of your content performance and adjust your strategy accordingly. For example, if video content is driving more engagement, allocate more resources to video production. Additionally, consider experimenting with new formats or platforms to stay ahead of the competition.

Tools to Streamline Your Content Marketing Plan

Here are some tools to make your life easier:

  • Content Creation: Canva, Adobe Spark.
  • SEO Optimization: Yoast SEO, SEMrush.
  • Social Media Scheduling: Hootsuite, Buffer.
  • Analytics: Google Analytics, HubSpot.

Conclusion

In today’s digital landscape, a well-crafted multi-channel content marketing plan is not just an option—it’s a necessity. By setting SMART goals, understanding your audience, auditing your existing content, and tailoring content for each platform, you can maximize engagement and reach your target audience effectively. 

Looking ahead, emerging technologies such as AI-driven content personalization, voice search optimization, and interactive media will further shape content marketing in 2024 and beyond. Brands that stay agile and embrace these innovations will gain a competitive edge.

Now is the time to refine your content marketing approach. Start by evaluating your current strategy, experimenting with new formats, and staying data-driven. With the right plan in place, your brand will not only capture attention but also drive meaningful engagement and conversions.

  Struggling with low website traffic? Get practical tips to boost your online presence and attract new leads.  
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Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

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No matter how big your business might be, whether it’s a small mom and pop store tucked away in a small town or a large corporation, advertising is an absolutely vital component of your success. If you do not invest in marketing your business, you’re unlikely to be able to spread any brand awareness. Not only will this make it difficult to grow your business, it will make it extremely difficult to keep it alive. When it comes to marketing your brand, you’re going to find that you have two main options–traditional marketing and digital marketing. The following is a breakdown of traditional marketing vs digital marketing.

Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

Before getting into the pros and cons of traditional marketing vs digital marketing, it’s important to understand how they differ in terms of strategy. Traditional marketing is about placing advertisements in places where your audience will have no chance of missing it. For example, TV ads, radio ads, magazine ads, newspaper ads, and billboards are all forms of traditional marketing. The idea is to put your brand at the top of mind of whoever sees your ad. Digital marketing is a bit different. It refers to the use of digital channels to market to consumers. For example, both online marketing and mobile marketing are forms of digital marketing. The following is a comparison/difference between traditional marketing and digital marketing to give you a better understanding of how both strategies work:

The marketing costs

Traditional advertising methods, such as creating videos and running them on TV or running print ads in the newspaper, tend to be relatively expensive. It’s going to be even more expensive when taking into account where you run it and when you run it. For example, a commercial that runs during prime time hours during a popular show is going to be more expensive than being shown on a local channel after midnight.

Digital marketing can get expensive as well. For example, posting video content on YouTube still requires that you produce that content–and while you can continuously run the same commercial for a while on TV, video content tends to have a shorter lifespan in the digital realm due to the need to continuously produce new content to keep drawing more traffic. One advantage that digital marketing does have is that it allows you to target more specific audiences, which means that if you’re targeting a specific niche, it could potentially be more cost-effective.

Reaching your audience

While traditional marketing allows you to reach a general audience, digital marketing makes it easier to reach your specific buyer persona. For example, you can use PPC advertising to specifically target potential customers who are searching for specific products that they want to buy. Due to the way PPC ads work in conjunction with keywords, the people that see your ad are all likely to be part of your target audience. With traditional marketing, it’s a bit more of a shot in the dark. While some consumers who are part of your target audience may be watching a certain channel when you run your commercial, many of those viewers may not be–and even if they are, they may not have a need or interest in your product.

Engaging the audience

One of digital marketing’s biggest advantages is that you can engage more directly with your audience. Audiences can interact with your content through social sharing and commenting, and you can engage directly with your audience for valuable feedback. Traditional marketing is a one-way street. You provide your message and your audience has no way to respond or interact.

Long-term vs Short-term

Once you stop running a commercial or a print ad, it’s over. This makes traditional marketing a short-term strategy. With digital marketing, your marketing efforts will live forever online. The content you created years ago can still be relevant and help bring in leads. This makes digital marketing a more effective long-term strategy.

As you can see, when comparing traditional marketing vs digital marketing, digital marketing has its share of advantages. But that’s not to say traditional marketing doesn’t work. In fact, many brands will combine the use of traditional marketing and digital marketing to great success. This is known as an omnichannel approach, and it’s an approach you should consider implementing as well.

A GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE MOBILE MARKETING TECHNIQUES

Components Of Web Design That Will Modernize Your Website

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In today’s age, keeping your website up to date is incredibly important if you want to remain competitive and maintain visibility. Having a modern, compelling website can open doors for your company and transform your user’s experience in a positive way. Here are the following components of web design that will help in website modernization.

Top 5 Web Design Components To Modernize Your Website

 

1. Minimal Design

In some cases, especially when it comes to your website, less is considered more. Exactly what it sounds like, minimal design provides users with a greater sense of clarity and focus when visiting your site. This type of modern design makes your website more user friendly and will make navigating your website much easier for visitors; it will also encourage users to focus more strongly on important details on your website like your content. The less distractions on your site, the better you’ll be at converting leads. Minimal design also helps your company appear more professional.

2. Mobile Friendly


Accessing the Internet from a mobile device has become second nature to a majority of folks. Making your website mobile friendly is absolutely critical if you want to be able to communicate your brand’s value to a wider audience. By having a mobile friendly website, you’ll be able to access a greater number of potential customers, resulting in an increase in profits.

3. Clean Design Typography

Choosing the right typography for your website is not something you should take lightly, as it helps communicate to consumers what kind of brand you are. If you want to appear as a modern, forward-thinking brand, you should stick to using web-standard fonts that can easily be interpreted by everyone. But according to HubSpot, if you’re struggling to set your brand apart from competitors, you might want to consider using a unique font to help visitors identify you from the crowd. Modernizing your website also means avoiding using an excessive amount of colored fonts, making sure your line-spacing is suitable to improve readability, and using an appropriate text size (usually 16px).

4. Full-Screen Background Videos


Visitors won’t always want to read large chunks of text and since our brains process videos much faster than text anyways, incorporating a background video on your website is a smart way to share your brand’s story without having to overwhelm your visitors with loads of text. Having a video on your website will not only intrigue visitors but will also encourage them to click through to the main video. Adding a background video is not difficult and can be achieved by hard coding on HTML and CSS, or by using plugins.

Types Of Marketing Video You Should Use

5. Hero Images

Google Trends foresees hero images to increase in popularity as a modern website design idea. Hero images are large banners that appear above or below the fold, or in the background with content overlaid on top of it. Hero images are great to help build a connection with visitors, and instead of drawing your visitor’s attention to social buttons or a CTA, using an image with text will encourage your visitors to want to scroll down to see more of your website. They also work to communicate your company’s story without adding a lot of text.

25 Website Must Haves For Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales

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5 SMART Goal Example For Business Development

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A SMART goal is basically what the acronyms from the name suggest. It is specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant and time bound. The Smart Goal process provides a frame where you can create a long term goal. It also provides a time limit for you to work on the same goal. By doing this business’ are 70% more successful in achieving their goals thanks to regular check-ins, updates and group accountability. Below are a few smart goals examples for business development that will help you understand the system better and enhance your business.

Smart Goal Examples for Business

  • “I Want To Increase My Profits”
  • “I Want To Improve My Response Time to Customer Complaints”
  • “I Want To Improve My Employee Retention”
  • “I Want To Be More Efficient In My Business Operations”
  • “I Want To Grow My Business Operation”

 

“I Want To Increase My Profits”

smart goal examples
Specific: I will increase revenue while cutting down on expenditure. Moving to a more affordable premise that will cut my rent by 7% will reduce the operational costs.

Measurable: I will increase sales over the next 3 months by signing in 5 more potential clients.

Attainable: I will improve my current customer relationships and promote the business through referrals, networking and through social networks. This will help me find more leads and therefore see to an increase in revenue for the business.

Relevant: moving to a cheaper establishment will reduce the operational cost of my business and therefore give room to the growth of profits.

Time-bound: I will have increased my profit by the end of the coming three months.

Also Read: Maximizing Profitability: How to Calculate and Improve Customer Lifetime Value

“I Want To Improve My Response Time to Customer Complaints”

smart goal examples
Specific: I will improve the response time to customer complaints by increasing my customer service staff from 3 to 8 in the next one year.

Measurable: the increase in customer service staff is scheduled to take place within one year. It should bring the number to a total of 8.

Attainable: as I plan on moving to a new establishment I will ensure the place has enough room to accommodate the additional staff members I intend to have in the next one year.

Relevant: I will find ways to manage the complaints meanwhile in order to maintain the customer base I have and strive to grow the client base even further to match the additional customer service staff.

Time-bound: I will have hired the customer service staff by the end of one year.

Learn More about: Creating Measurable Social Media Goals

 

“I Want To Improve My Employee Retention”

smart goal examples
Specific: I will improve the employee turnover by 15% in 90 days by putting up training for the new employees to let them know what is expected of them and have a program for them to get used to the operation systems. I will also have one-on-one meetings with employees so that I get to know what challenges they could be facing.

Measurable: the improvement in employee turnover is scheduled to be by about 15% and should take place within 90 days.

Attainable: trainings and one-on-one meetings will ensure the employees are prepared for what is expected of them when they get into production. It also give me a hint of what’s on their mind concerning general operations of the business.

Relevant: outstanding employees will be put up for a reward system. For the ones that might be having a difficult time, there will be motivation trainings for encouragement.

Time-bound: employee turnover will have improved within 90 days

 

“I Want To Be More Efficient In My Business Operations”

smart goal examples
Specific: I will improve my efficiency in business operations by challenging my sales department to increase their closing ratio from its current 45% to at least 60%. They could also work on improving the delivery time from 72hours to at least 12hours maximum.

Measurable: the sales people are supposed to increase their closing ratio from 45% to 60% and the delivery time improved to 12 hours from the initial 72hours

Attainable: I will conduct a survey to find out what both the clients and the sales team think about the idea. I will implement it as soon as the idea passes as valid.

Relevant: increasing the number of motorbikes and pickups that will do courier services for us will help make the plan a success

Time-bound: this should happen in one year.

 

“I Want To Grow My Business Operation”


Specific: open three more branches countrywide within five years

Measurable: the objective is to increase operations and revenue for the business. This will, in turn, facilitate the growth to three more branches.

Attainable: increasing my current selling space by 25% will mean more production. This can help me save for the planned growth to 4 branches countrywide.

Relevant: increasing production, operations and revenue will mean a larger client base thus the need for more branches will not be a wasteful idea after all.

Time-bound: establishing the branches should be within the next five years.

Learn More About: How Smart Goals Should Align With Your Business Goals

 

As much as an organization will work to ensure that its business goals are smart, they will never be flawless. It is, however, essential to ensure they give their teams tasks within their capability and make decisions using accurate data from their past operations while setting new smart business goals. The rest will work out just fine.

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What AI means To B2B Marketing Strategies

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Artificial intelligence is no longer just a concept explored through pop culture; it’s a very real thing that has become increasingly prevalent throughout society, even in the creation of B2B marketing strategies. In fact, the use of AI is practically commonplace now. For example, the use of AI is what allows Amazon to recommend personalized products based on your buying and browsing habits. It also allows your GPS to provide you with the best possible route. For business owners and marketers, AI has also become essential to improving B2B marketing strategies.

The Benefits of AI in B2B Marketing Strategies

The following are just a few ways that the use of AI can help to improve B2B marketing strategies:

Improve the customer experience via personalization

Businesses no longer directly interact with brands when they are doing product or service research. This means it can be difficult to mine information from potential clients or business partners. The use of AI technology for B2B Marketing can help you collect data that provides insight into the behavioral patterns of both existing and potential clients or partners. This means that your marketing efforts no longer have to be limited to certain sectors, you’ll be able to target specific businesses with messages designed to provide solutions to their specific needs, thereby improving the customer experience as well.

Improve your marketing strategy

The use of behavioral analysis and machine learning can help you to better understand what the pain points of your target audience is. Behavioral analyses also allows you to craft a more effective marketing strategy to reach and convert that audience.

Save money by saving time

The use of AI technology means that you don’t have to spend hours analyzing data. This type of data can be collected and analyzed by AI programs for you. It will allow you to dedicate more time to other aspects of your business.

Improve results with lead scoring

Trying to chase down every lead is typically a waste of time since not all leads are equal. The use of AI for b2b marketing strategies can allow you to score your leads using all of the behavioral data that you’ve collected. This, in turn, allows you to pinpoint businesses that are much more likely to convert. It allows for a better use of your resources since you can identify the best prospects and prioritize your most promising accounts.

The use of artificial intelligence will help to improve your B2B marketing strategies in any number of ways, whether it’s by helping you to collect and organize more valuable data that can be used to more effectively target qualified leads using personalization, or simply being able to make better use of your resources. Be sure to visit us at Stevens & Tate to take advantage of our free downloadable marketing tools, which can be leveraged to help improve your B2B marketing efforts.

For more resources on Attraction Marketing, click here.

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business

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How To Drive Brand Awareness

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Awareness, as we alluded to in our first article Using The Right Media Mix During Each Stage Of The Buyer’s Journeys, is a two way street. On the one hand your potential buyers become aware they have a problem that needs a solution, and on the other you as a marketer must boost brand awareness in order for them to find you, your content, and consequentially your products or services.

Let’s explore what is brand awareness is?

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness refers to the extent to which consumers are familiar with and recognize a brand. It measures how readily a brand comes to mind and how well consumers understand what the brand represents. In other words, how well do they identify with your brand name, its characteristics, your logo, or other things that strongly correlate to the products or services you offer. And while many major corporations have a significant hold on their respective markets with their branding, how can you as a marketer drive brand awareness? Let’s take a look.

How To Drive Brand Awareness?

Keywords and SEO

Your blog is the destination you want all prospective buyers to land on during their awareness stage, and keywords and SEO may as well be the road map to get them there. Getting found through search is the cornerstone of inbound.

As a matter of fact, the top 3 search results typically get 50% of the clicks which is exactly why you should strive to get your search results to the top of search engines. The search engine optimization game; however, is more of a marathon than a sprint and instant results likely won’t see your brand become the cream of the crop in the long run.

Correctly keywording your blog posts and your site as a whole will improve your company’s overall credibility which will in turn create trust between your brand and your site’s visitors. Additionally, SEO gives you a quantifiable, trackable avenue for your marketing by helping you see real data from your search results. For more on the nitty gritty of how SEO can boost your brand awareness, check out our blog post for how to optimize website for great results.

Keywords themselves will only get you so far, so let’s take a look at how to tie your target keywords into meaningful content via blogs.

Also Read: How Your SEO Benefits From A Long Term Strategy

Blogging

brand awareness

For small and large businesses alike, driving brand awareness starts with a healthy group of focused, educational content pieces in the form of your brand’s blog. Any successful blog starts by finding a topic that people are interested in. Add in a few internal links, some CTAs, and you’re mostly good to go. Here are a few of expert tips to have a successful blog:

  • Proper Formatting – The meat of your blog is its content, so format it in a way that makes sense and helps your posts flow. Break the content up into short paragraphs for easier reading and intersperse some relevant offers and promotions throughout the body.
  • Attractive Titles – Titles should accurately and attractively reflect the body of the blog post. Keep your titles between 50 and 60 characters for search engines.
  • Pretty Pictures – Add some relevant pictures to your post to make it more eye-catching. Be sure to alt text the pictures in your blogs to help boost SEO.
  • Links and CTAs – Internal links help keep users on your page and help them take in more of your expertise. CTAs help convert visitors to leads through well-designed landing pages with offers as the end result for the user.
  • Consistency is Key – Regular blog posts with fresh content will keep your subscribers coming back to your brand. Start with one quality blog per week then expand as you feel comfortable.

While these tips are great foundational resources for your blog, tying them to your keywords is crucial to getting found organically via search engines. Once you’ve found a long tail keyword or group of keywords that work for your blog, it’s important to use those words naturally (generally 3-5 times) throughout the body of each blog post. Also, link similarly keyworded content to the keywords you use and connect the web of your websites SEO.

Social Media

The final piece to brand awareness as it pertains to your buyer’s journey is social media. While social media is the last piece of the awareness puzzle we’re mentioning, it may very well be the first place your buyers land when seeking information to solve their problem.

Social media sites are some of the most indexed by search engines on the entire world wide web. With hundreds of millions of posts daily by businesses and individuals alike, social media is a crucial hub of activity for your content and your buyers. In all likelihood, ceteris paribus, your brand’s social media sites will be scrolled and indexed before your brand’s blog or website which makes brand awareness through social media all the more critical.

Posting on social media is an art and a skill that can be honed by knowing your buyer personas, what social media platforms they use, and what your goals for social media are especially as it relates to driving B2B sales. Tailoring your messages within those confines will make sure that the things you’re publishing are on point, relevant, and capable of converting interested parties into leads. Lead conversion in social media means attaching a meaningful CTA or offer to each of your posts to give your potential buyers the chance of becoming more aware of your brand through offers.

Also Read: When Are the Best Times to Post On Social Media?

Next: Lead Nurturing During the Consideration Stage

In our next article we’ll move further down your sales funnel as we examine what happens during the consideration stage of your buyer’s journey including leveraging drip emails, marketing automation, and remarketing to move your buyers into the decision making stage.

Integrating Social Media & SEO Efforts For Enhanced Search Engine Results

smart goal examples for marketing

SMART Goal Examples That Will Make You a Better Marketer

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When creating your inbound marketing strategy, it’s important that you set smart goals for marketing as part of your planning process. Without smart goals, you won’t be able to judge the performance of your inbound marketing tactics. This means you’ll have no idea whether your money is being put to good use. When you have goals in place, you can make adjustments to underperforming tactics. However, one of the mistakes many brands make is to set goals that are vague or too broad, such as “increasing brand awareness” or “building brand authority.” This article will talk about good smart and examples that are helpful in marketing. 

What Are Smart Goals?

SMART goals are goals that are (S)pecific, (M)easureable, (A)ttainable, (R)elevant, and (T)ime-bound. They are clearly defined goals that are realistic, quantifiable, and focused. By implementing these goals, you’ll know exactly what kind of results you’re aiming for and how to accomplish them. The following is a more detailed breakdown of SMART goals:

  • Specific goals – Specific goals are metrics that you want to improve, such as leads or visitors.
  • Measurable goals – To track the progress you’re making, you need to quantify your goals. For example, a type of event increased the number of visitors to your site by 20 percent.
  • Attainable goals – It’s important that your goal is something that’s actually possible. For example, doubling the number of visitors to your site in one month is probably unrealistic. Increasing your visitors by 10 percent may not be, especially if you managed to increase your visitors by 5 percent the previous month.
  • Relevant goals – Make sure that reaching the goals you’ve set will actually have an impact. For example, hitting your goal to increase your website traffic by 10 percent may not mean much if you have a high bounce rate or if none of these visitors are converting.
  • Time-bound goals – Set a deadline to meet your goals so that there’s some pressure to actually accomplish them.

Examples Of How Smart Goals Should Align With Your Business Goals

SMART Goal Examples

The following are a few SMART goal examples for marketing to give you an idea of how you can implement SMART goals in your marketing strategy:

  • Bring in more web traffic – Increasing web traffic is a very general goal. The SMART goal version of this might be to increase web traffic by 10 percent within one month. This includes the use of SEO, social engagement and content marketing to increase lead generation.SMART goals for email marketing
  • Increase email subscribers – Email marketing is an excellent way to nurture leads. A SMART goal version could be to increase your email subscribers by 20 percent within one month using your Facebook ad budget on blog posts that have previously captured the most email subscribers.
  • Gather a webinar audience – If you are planning a webinar, then you can use a SMART goal to help measure its success. Let’s say you’ve already collected 100 signups within two weeks. The seminar is scheduled in one month. Your SMART goal might be to double your signups for your webinar by the webinar date through social, email, and blog promotion in order to close more sales.

These are a few SMART goal examples in marketing. These SMART goal examples take some very basic marketing goals and make them more actionable and measurable. The use of SMART goals in marketing can really help you get the most out of your marketing dollars. This is because you can use the results (whether you end up meeting your goals or not) to set future goals that may be more realistic and impactful.

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The Importance of Earning High Quality Backlinks

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One of the major goals of an inbound marketing campaign is to be found online. There are many tactics that you can implement in order to achieve this. One such tactic is through link building, especially high-quality backlinks. Link building refers to getting other websites to link to your content.

The more high quality backlinks that you earn to your website, the more traffic you’ll receive. Because of the nature of high-quality backlinks, there’s a good chance that this traffic will consist of high-quality leads. Because of this, you should try to earn as many high-quality backlinks as possible.

High-Quality Backlinks Benefits

There are two major benefits of high-quality backlinks. The first is that a website that links to your content is doing so to provide its audience with a quality source that they think will benefit them. This means that your content will be exposed to an audience that is likely going to be relevant to your brand. Backlinks from websites with particularly big audiences are going to result in a lot of web traffic to your site as well, which can result in more potential leads.

The second benefit of earning high-quality backlinks is that they indicate to Google that your content is of high quality. After all, a reputable website wouldn’t send its audience to your page if the content wasn’t helpful or relevant. As such, Google factors the number of high-quality backlinks that your content earns into its page rankings. This means that the more high-quality backlinks you earn, the higher your page is probably going to appear on their SERP. As a result, you’ll gain more exposure and more organic web traffic.

Also Read: Content Marketing Misconceptions

How to Earn High-Quality BacklinksHigh Quality Backlink2

Earning high-quality backlinks might seem like a matter of luck. After all, you have no control over whether another website decides to link to your content. However, this isn’t necessarily true. There are several ways that you can increase the chances of being linked to. The following are a few tips on how you can earn more high-quality backlinks:

  • Create high-quality content – The first thing that’s required to earn backlinks is to have content worth linking to. This means that you should focus on creating high-quality content that is relevant to your target audience and that is helpful or informative in some way. Be sure to get your content out there too by promoting it. For example, link your content to your social channels and add social share buttons so your readers can help expose it to more people. The more exposure the content is, the more likely it is that another website will stumble onto it and link to it.
  • Optimize your content for SEO – The higher your content ranks on Google’s SERP, the more likely it is that another website will find your content when doing research for their own blog content. If they end up referencing your content, they will link back to it.
  • Build your brand authority – The more brand authority you have, the more you’ll be trusted as an expert in your field. As a result, websites will be more willing to link to your content as a valid source that they can use to strengthen whatever argument they’re making or information they’re providing in their own content.
  • Build relationships with influencers – Find the influencers within your industry on social media and begin building relationships with them. Once they know you exist, they may link to your content. Not only can you earn backlinks this way, but the additional exposure can result in more backlinks in the near future.

Also Read: The Power of an Influencer Marketing Strategy: How and Why It Works

  • Write guest blog posts – When you write a guest blog post on another website, that website will link your guest post back to your own blog. This means that you’re automatically earning backlinks for every guest post your write.

Also read: Blog Vs. Vlog: Why Your Business Should Begin Vlogging

  • Link to other websites – Link your content to other high-quality websites. Doing this can result in them returning the favor.

How Businesses Can Use a Blog To Strengthen Their Online Marketing Efforts

The thing about backlinks is that they only help in SEO if they come from a reputable website. A low-quality website isn’t going to send you a whole lot of traffic, after all. Additionally, Google will evaluate where your backlinks are coming from to ensure that they are from a reputable source. The reason they do this is because websites would try to trick Google into providing high page rankings. They did this by buying backlinks from websites that sold them, known as link farms. This was a common blackhat tactic that is now very difficult to get away with. If you buy backlinks, Google will penalize you by either lowering your page ranking. Or they’ll kick your page off of their SERP.

Understanding why backlinks are important, the importance of earning them should be a key tactic in SEO that everyone invests in. Doing so can help to increase the exposure of your brand and your content. Help bring in traffic from other websites, and help boost your SEO rankings, thereby attracting more organic traffic from Google.

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B2B vs B2C Marketing Automation

Difference Between B2B and B2C Marketing Automation

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Marketing automation offers a company the chance to centralize most of its marketing activities into a single software platform and to automate it to an extent. This centralization appeals to both B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) companies. However, there is a difference between B2B and B2C marketing automation due to fundamental differences between the two groups.

Why Is Marketing Automation Between B2B and B2C Different?

Effective marketing addresses each customer’s individual goals and needs. This remains true whether the customer is B2B or B2C. Because these groups have differing goals and needs, the way you market to them has to be different. As a result, the following differences remain when you use marketing automation:

  • The marketing focus differs:

    • With B2B, the focus is on generating leads and keeping their subscribers engaged throughout the longer sales cycle.
    • With B2C the focus is on building the brand.

  • The tactics used are different:

    • B2B marketing delivers content that positions the company as an industry leader, while nurturing the lead in the sales process.
    • B2C marketing is about the customer journey and making data-driven recommendations for products or services.

  • The tone of the messages is different:

    • B2B messages are to targeted groups at different stages of the sales cycle.
    • B2C messages are more personal and highly relevant to the individual.

Also Read: Top 5 Benefits Of Marketing Automation

Difference Between B2B vs B2C Marketing Automation

With all the differences between B2B vs B2C Marketing Automation, it’s easy to see why their marketing automation needs differ as well.

  • Communication channels. While both B2B and B2C businesses rely on email for marketing, the B2C use other channels as well. Text messaging, push notifications and retargeting are just a few examples. The B2C marketing automation solution needs to handle these additional channels.
  • Data used. B2B consumers are businesses that have specific needs. Marketing data for this group would include approximate company size, industry, point of contact and specific needs. B2C consumers are individuals with specific tastes. Marketing data for this group includes age, gender, purchase history and frequently visited product categories.
  • Features needed. B2B companies need help with nurturing their leads through the sales cycle. They want features like lead scoring and integration with their CRM system. B2C companies want to retain the customers they get, so they want features like reputation management, retargeting and retention marketing.
  • Marketing focus. B2B marketing focuses building the one-on-one relationship. B2C is more about building the brand and building mass appeal.
  • Pricing. B2B automation is priced based on the number of contacts managed within the system. B2C automation is priced based on the volume of data. It is not uncommon for B2B automation to have only 100 contacts in the system while B2C has thousands.

Also Read: Differences Between B2C and B2B Email Marketing

The differing approaches of B2B and B2C marketing lead to their different marketing automation solutions. Trying to substitute one strategy for the other is difficult, due to different features and pricing structures. If you need help finding the right solution for your business, contact us at Stevens-Tate.

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