How to Use Data as a Competitive Advantage

Big Data, in short, has gone mainstream. But that raises an important question: If everyone is “data-driven” in both theory and action, how can businesses carve out meaningful competitive differentiation through their use of information? What room exists for real commercial advantage when everyone in the marketing ecosystem is advancing from the novice to expert stages of their respective data maturities?

The above is an excerpt from the foreword of the white paper Data as Competitive Advantage. Oracle Marketing Cloud worked with the Winterberry Group, the IAB, Dun & Bradstreet, Accordant Media and AddThis on research that highlights how a combination of businesses – agencies, brands and publishers alike – are using “data” in their marketing businesses as well as their perceptions of what’s working and what could be better. Most of the individuals who responded to this research have used a Data Management Platform (DMP) within the last three years or less, which represents rapid growth! 

Given the rate of adoption and interest, we helped produce this research as a way to better understand how the marketplace is considering “data” and how we can better address the needs of the marketplace through our own technologies and services. That said, here are a few of the key takeaways from the Data As A Competitive Advantage white paper:

1. Use of audience data represents competitive advantage, but only for sophisticated marketers and publishers. In addition, basic business drivers that meet core revenue attainment goals are what are still prioritized, over audience data use that “may” have business value, but are not necessarily guaranteed. 90% said there was “some” business value and 74% of the executives who contributed to the paper said that accountability was “the” metric needed to grow topline revenue and that is what matters most. 
2. Data practitioners understand the value of using 1st party data – the data most organizations already have access to, but it is still nascent with only 52% of these users having seen “value” in the use of 1st party data activation. 
3. Advertisers continue to see value in open market RTB sources, but are concerned about “private data market” exchanges. This signals the rise of private data exchanges or “walled gardens” as we say and the question regarding how to optimize cross-channel capabilities with limited line of sight or access to the right data to inform customer experience (and business outcome) through these private exchanges. 
4. Attribution is still the beacon that all marketers aim to ensure their programs have across channels. That said, the efforts to fully measure and have an end to end attribution program are still widely yielding “mediocre” results for most marketers.
5. Operational and organizational agility is now being recognized as something that has to be addressed for businesses to transform and embrace a data-driven philosophy.
6. Industries are still leaning on technology providers, like Oracle, to make tools that “pull it all together” so that it is easy to embrace and use the data systems that exist – in the multitude of locations and systems that they exist in. 

Why is a Data Centric Business Model Adopted?

All of the above points suggest that while there is much greater appreciation and understanding for what becoming “data driven” can mean for a marketer, the practice is still largely nascent and the understanding for how to use specific technology to address specific use cases is still being assessed by most marketers with varying degrees of success – due to operational items, organizational and potentially even technology providers.

So, while some more sophisticated marketers have tried and succeeded with becoming more data driven, the success hasn’t been widely repeatable and the results have yet to be consistent. 

We continue to provide guidance to our customers about “how” to consider “data” success in their own unique organizations and knowing what will work, who will champion, and what success looks like before any technology decision is made. Enabling data success in any organization requires so much more than technology alone. 

Download Data as Competitive Advantage and see for yourself the role that data plays in driving competitive business advantage across a range of advertising, marketing and digital media use cases.

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These 3 Email Subject Lines Will Kill Your Chances of Winning a New Customer

These 3 Email Subject Lines Will Kill Your Chances of Winning a New Customer written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing

How many times have you gotten an email from a salesperson with one of these three subject lines?

“Checking In”

“Touching Base”

“Following Up”

I’ve received dozens of emails like this and am guilty of sending a whole bunch of them too. Think about it: aren’t these just euphemisms for “Wanna buy my stuff?”

What to say instead of “Wanna buy my stuff?”

“What should I say instead?” you might be wondering. Following up is such a critical part of the sales process, and the last thing you want is to be forgotten by your prospect. What’s a way to follow up while simultaneously providing value?

Instead of emailing someone to remind them you would like to sell them something, use the opportunity to provide targeted education. What’s the best way to be sure you’re sending something that’s relevant, though?

After you earn a prospect’s email address, assign that prospect to a simple workflow based on their interests. This is difficult at first if you’re simply maintaining one catch-all email list. Instead of just one list, create a series of categories based on specific interests. John Jantsch does a great job describing this concept in his recent article titled Content 3.0 – The Rise of the Content Community. This community concept may seem a bit overwhelming at first, however, and you may be wondering…

What to do if you don’t have digital assets yet

If your business is struggling with this whole digital marketing thing, start with baby steps as you work toward a Content Community repository. To get started, consider this: What questions are your prospects asking you every single day that you’re manually answering via email or phone calls? What can you offer these prospects that is both concise and actionable? Simple digital assets like cheat sheets, checklists and templates work great in this capacity. Limit these downloads to one page so they can easily be shared or printed.

By offering specific assets geared at fixing specific problems, you can gauge your prospects’ interests immediately, and not be left guessing what issues they’re facing. Which asset do you create first? This is where we need to stop thinking so hard. What question do you hear more than any other? Create that one now.

As an example, if you’re a marketer specializing in SEO, you probably hear the question “How do I drive more traffic to my website?” all the time. For those prospective clients who download your “5 Biggest Mistakes Companies Make With SEO” cheat sheet, ensure your email messages further their education about that specific topic. That will be an email they’ll actually look forward to receiving.

How to get started right now

This is the part where I ask you to get out of your own way. Don’t analyze these concepts to death or over-automate your workflows…just start. Instead of retroactively applying these ideas to your existing email list – an incredibly daunting task if you’ve been in business more than a few years – start fresh with only new prospects. You’ll iron out the kinks much faster, and just as importantly, you’ll get to experience success early and often as a result of your efforts.

 

Spencer X. Smith is committed to helping clients achieve measurable increases in revenue from their digital marketing efforts. He using Plain English to help you understand what methods are worth doing – or not doing – with your business. The ideas he shares are what he uses every day in his companies, and only through experiencing the success and failure can he confidently advise on them. He is also an instructor at the University of Wisconsin.

 

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Brands Share Their Most Hair-Raising Content Marketing Horror Stories

If content marketing stories were movies, most of the ones we hear today would be romantic comedies. Brands all over the world are telling stories of how they overcame obstacles and beat the odds to make their customers fall in love with them.

While these stories are inspiring, sometimes content marketing isn’t all flowers and chocolates and happy endings. Sometimes well-intentioned marketers end up in a cabin in the woods, hearing the unmistakable roar of a chainsaw approaching.

While they’re not pleasant for any marketer to experience, content marketing horror stories can teach valuable lessons. We can learn as much from failure as we do from success–perhaps even more so.

So in honor of Halloween, we asked marketing superstars from 3M, NewsCred and Content Marketing Institute to share their most harrowing tales of content marketing gone wrong. Prepare to be edified and terrified with these 3 hair-raising content marketing horror stories.

Michael Brenner

Head of Strategy, NewsCred

My personal content marketing horror story involved a member of my team covering a competitor’s piece of research in a well-written blog post. The research was actually conducted by an independent firm but sponsored by a competitor. It was hosted on the independent firm’s landing page but heavily promoted visually by the competitive brand.

We published the article. It performed very well and was even tweeted by the VP of Sales for that solution. The VP of Marketing for the same solution saw the tweet, followed the breadcrumbs back to our competitor and suggested to me that I should be fired.

Turns out, the article drove thousands of visitors to our branded content hub. It drove hundreds of people to our solution pages and only a dozen or so to the independent firm’s landing page.

Thanks to the data, I was able to save my job and in the process showed some folks in our company the value of focusing on helping your customers, even if it means covering competitor research or mentioning them.

Carlos Abler

Leader: Content Marketing & Strategy Global eTransformation, 3M

Horror? Or tragedy? We’ll let the scholars debate about this Frankenstein’s monster. This chimera formed of terror and crushed hope, as unnatural as it was grotesque.

It was the late 2000’s; early in my career as a facilitator of enterprise content marketing transformation. It was a high-revenue subsidiary poised for greatness.

This recipe had all of the ingredients for success. I was eager to stir the pot. Enter, a marketing executive driving a three-year content maturity roadmap. Enter, a marketing architect champing at the bit to build a high-conversion editorial empire. Add a group of segment marketers partnered with knowledgeable sales staff who knew their customers well

Together we developed 4 content marketing initiatives calculated to drive $14.5 million dollars in new revenue in year one, while fixing previously broken parts of the relationship funnel. I was already sketching my acceptance speech for a chain of accolades.

And then everything went sideways.

A reorganization hit.

The division slid backward even farther than where they were when we began. And now all of these burdensome expectations regarding “content” suddenly gave content a bad name to the new leadership. They didn’t understand the role of content. Now the remaining content champions had to go underground, couldn’t ask for resources and support, had to find underhanded ways to serve content. As if practicing a crucial new pillar of marketing were something to be ashamed of.

So what’s the lesson? As you move forward in content change management, ensure that your champions are in place and that their position is stable. Anticipate and attempt to route any disruption to their focus, if you can. Otherwise, like I did, you will suffer the dual consequences of horror and tragedy.

Joe Pulizzi

Founder, Content Marketing Institute

Perhaps the biggest horror story from readers that we continually hear is targeting more than one audience at a time with a content initiative.  For example, late last year I was approached by a blog editor that worked for a large technology company.  She was frustrated that the blog wasn’t meeting their marketing objectives.  I asked her simply, “who is the audience for the blog?”  She stated that they target 18 personas.  I quickly told her I found the problem.

Even diluting your message through adding just one additional audience group will make it almost impossible for you to be relevant to both.  While you are targeting two, three or four audiences, someone out there is becoming the leading informational provider for your core audience target.

Focus is everything.

Share Your Spookiest Content Marketing Story

Okay, it’s safe to peek your head above the overs again. The horror stories are over, and we’re safe until the inevitable sequel.

Now it’s your turn to share! We’d love to hear one of your real-life content horror stories and what you learned when it was all said and done.

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Solar Power – The Perfect Energy Source

Solar energy is the light and the heat from the Sun. This energy is free, unlimited and, it doesn’t cause any pollution, which makes it the perfect source of power. With the availability of very low priced easy to install DIY solar systems, certainly, there has never been a better time to take advantage of this remarkable, infinite energy source.

There are lots of ways in which we are able to harness the power of the sun. In warm countries for example, solar furnaces are able to be used as means for cooking food. A solar furnace is merely a huge array of mirrors used to concentrate the Sun’s power into a small area and produce quite high temperatures. They are generally referred to as solar cookers.

The movie ‘Race the Sun’ was a story concerning low- income and under achieving Hawaiian students, advised by their teacher to join the Solar Car Race. In the movie, an automobile the same shape as a cockroach and covered with solar panels utilised the Sun’s rays as an alternative source of energy to run the vehicle.

Since Roman times we have been using the Sun as an effective method of obtaining electric power. Nowadays nonetheless we have created solar thermal solutions which are put to use for water heating, space heating, space cooling and process heat generation. Solar technology is also used to distil water and even transform saline or brackish water into something that is drinkable. Solar water disinfection or SODIS as it’s commonly known, involves subjecting water-filled plastic polyethylene terephthalate or PET bottles to the Sun, whereby UV-radiation kills diarrhoea generating bad bacteria. The SODIS-method helps to defend against diarrhoea and and in so doing is saving lives of people. In excess of 4000 children die each and every day from the effects of diarrhoea. This technique does rely on climate conditions, but given that the most crucial demand for water is located in hot countries this is when this system is most effective. Currently, you will find in excess of two million people in developing countries who rely upon SODIS for everyday drinking water needs.

Daylight systems are also being used to optimize the power emitted by the sun. A Daylight System is used to provide interior illumination, thereby replacing the need for artificial lighting. Daylight systems include things like sawtooth roofs,, skylights, and light tubes. Where daylight systems are correctly implemented they’ll reduce lighting-related energy consumption typically by 25 percent.

One of the fastest growing areas regarding the utilisation of solar power is in the use of photovoltaic or PV panels which can be used to convert the sun’s rays directly into electricity. To start with solar energy was only utilized to power modest appliances and equipment, such as calculators that are powered by way of a single solar cell. Even though water and space heating tend to be the most commonly used applications of solar energy, the advancement of photovoltaic technology now means that a lot more families are using solar energy to supply either a significant percentage or even all of their energy needs.

One of the main concerns associated with the usage of solar energy with regard to domestic properties has been the expense of fitting such a system. Several thousand dollars were required simply to pay for installing a fairly modest system. Today however, the availability of DIY solar energy materials, and indeed complete kits, has meant that superb systems can easily be installed for mere 100’s of dollars.

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Instagram Lead Generation – The Ultimate Guide

Instagram Lead Generation – The Ultimate Guide written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Instagram is not just for images of coffee, fluffy dogs, and your breakfast.

Though it is awesome for all of those, it has the highest user/brand interaction rate, 1.53% of the 150 million users in 2013 to be precise, significantly higher than Facebook’s measly 0.10%, as shown by Neil Patel’s infographic here.

I think it is safe to say that if your business is not leveraging the world fastest growing social media platform for lead generation, then you are leaving money on the table.

Though do not fear, in this ultimate guide to Instagram lead generation, I am going to share ALL of the best tactics that some of Instagram’s most powerful accounts are leveraging right now.

However, before we get stuck into specific strategies, I must first introduce a fundamental concept: the difference between owned and non-owned marketing lists.

You do not own the communication channel used to market to your Instagram/Twitter followers, Facebook Likers or LinkedIn Connections, if any of those respective platforms close down, you lose your list.

Therefore, any online marketer worth their salt should spend a significant amount of time attempting to move his audience from their non-owned, social lists onto their owned lists, in this case: email list.

Thus, the rest of this post is focussed on generating leads on your owned, email list through Instagram.

1. Targeting

Before embarking on any lead generation campaign, you must answer, in my opinion, the most important question in marketing.

Who is your Ideal Lead?

And more specifically:

• What do they do in their spare time?
• What are their goals and values?
• What do they read/watch/listen to?
• Where do they go on holiday?

It is crucial that you have a very clear picture of whom you will be targeting with your Instagram campaign for two reasons:

1. It will make it MUCH easier to find these people on the platform
2. You will make sales when the reach the bottom of your funnel

Only when a comprehensive profile of your Ideal Lead is created, can we move on to the next stage of the process.

2. Optimization

When your Ideal Lead lands on your Instagram profile they MUST immediately be able to tell:

• That it is you
• What they stand to gain by looking at your profile

We can achieve this through consistent branding, a benefit driven description and a compelling call to action.

BRANDING

Your Instagram handle, photo and feel of content must speak directly to your Ideal Lead, admittedly, your handle (company name) and photo (logo/headshot) are have most probably already been defined (Aside: I would ensure these are consistent across all of your social media profiles).

Which leaves your content, we will discuss in the promotion section below.

However an Instagram post would not be complete without mention of what is in my opinion the best example of social media marketing at this current time:

Can you see the congruence between profile name, image, and content?

BENEFIT DRIVEN DESCRIPTION & COMPELLING CALL TO ACTION

Your Ideal Lead does not care about you and your business, they care about themselves and the outcomes you have them achieve and/or problems you can help them solve.

And that is exactly what we are going to do.

The majority of business social media profile descriptions abide by the following formula:

“Hello, we are X, and we do Y.”

As discussed above, your Ideal Lead does not care about you or what you do, they care about what you can do for them.

I would propose we combine the vital information about your business with a benefit driven description and compelling call to action, just as Foundrmag do:

Now, I do not want to go into detail on your customer journey but to craft a benefit driven description and compelling call to action you need to understand exactly what problem your are solving/outcome you are achieving for your customer. Then you must take a small yet high-value part of the solution and offer it in exchange for an email address on a SPECIFIC landing page (more on this in the Tracking section later).

This landing page is then linked below your description, in an easy to remember fashion, note how Foundrmag use the URL extension “free” as a reminder for their Ideal Lead and the pointing fingers that I have found to increase click through rate.

Your description must clearly outline the benefit that your Ideal Lead will experience from a click on the link and subsequently obtaining access to your solution in exchange for their email address.

3. Promotion

We have our Ideal Lead profiled; we have our profile optimized for lead generation, now all we need is traffic…

CONTENT

What types images/videos does your Ideal Customer want to consume?

Do they have aspirations related to business, travel, relationships, money or nature?

This is what you need to be posting, at least once per day. Though regardless of your posting schedule, consistency is crucial, as your audience will start to expect your content in a certain schedule, you do not want to disappoint.

And as for the filter argument, let’s keep it simple; here are the top 10 most popular, according to Populargram:

1. Normal (No Filter)
2. Valencia
3. Earlybird
4. X-Pro II
5. Amaro
6. Rise
7. Hudson
8. Lo-fi
9. Hefe
10. Sierra

Wordswag and Canva can be used for editing images, adding text and Instagram’s Layout app to create multi-images.

Hyperlapse can be used to create time-lapse videos, see examples of how business can use these effectively here.

Protein World is a great example of an account with strong, consistent branding and regular high-quality content:

Once your content type has been decided, it is time to research hashtags.

Search Instagram for keywords relating to the solution you provide for your Ideal Lead and note and hashtags that have over 1,000 images and record.

The TagsForLikes app can store custom hashtag lists and also provide hashtag inspiration. Built up a list of 25-30 core hashtags  (this is the Instagram hashtag limit per image) and save in the TagsForLikes app (this can also provide hashtag inspiration) for easy access.

When posting an image, include any other account in your image (more on this later), a short description and 2-3 image specific hashtags then add the rest of your more solution specific hashtags in the first comment below the image.

It is also important to track the time of each post and measure the number of likes/comments it receives and then optimizing your posting times to maximize engagement.

And finally, like every blog post.

Every Instagram image must have a call to action whether it be:

• “Double tap if you agree.”
• “(Question relevant to image and Ideal Lead)?”
• “Tag a friend who needs to see this.”

All three of these will lead to more engagement and potential exposure for your Instagram account and offer.

USER GENERATED CONTENT

Getting your users/Ideal Leads/existing customers is an excellent method to increase lead generation on Instagram. Depending on your brand, your customers may volunteer to send in content to your account for no cost and then go on to share it with their friends, who also fit the profile of your Ideal Lead.

The growth of sTitch Leggings Instagram profile has mainly been driven by user generated content (FULL DISCLOSURE – I am a co-founder of sTitch):

SHARE FOR SHARE

The Share For Share strategy for gaining Instagram traffic will see your account agree with another account that has a similar audience, and you take it in turns to mention each other, thus increasing your exposure to new potential Ideal Leads.

Though at the start of your profiles life cycle it may not be possible to obtain Share For Share partners, in which case some account may mention you in exchange for your product/service or cold hard cash. Pixlee is a great tool for finding influencers of your Ideal Lead.

LIKING/COMMENTING/FOLLOWING

The cheapest and most widely used strategy for growing Instagram traffic is through liking, commenting and following your potential Ideal Leads.

Remember the hashtags you determined for your content above?

These are exactly the same hashtags that can be searched to find your Ideal Leads.

I would recommend that for 20-30 minutes each day you/someone in your team, searching those hashtags most relevant to your Ideal Lead and like the majority of those images/videos and commenting on those that you have something genuine to say. For those people that you comment on, I would also recommend following and liking their top three pictures. You will find that some these individuals will follow/like you back.

Tools such as Crowdfire can be used to identify influencers or your Ideal Lead and even competitors followers to target.

While following your Ideal Leads, it is important to take your follower/following ratio into account, you don’t want this getting out of control. Ideally you can keep your ratio at least 1:0.5 and if you find your following count raising too high, I would recommend unfollowing to return the balance.

NETWORKING

When out and about with people that have an Instagram, I would highly encourage to take pictures and share while mentioning the person that you are with.

The more you do this, the more people will reciprocate and mention you back, leading to more exposure.

CONTESTS

Giving away stuff on social media is nothing new.

But it still works, so you could consider investing in some prizes that your Ideal Lead would potentially wish to claim and then either request people to tag a friend in the image to enter or even pay other Instagram accounts to run the competition with potential Ideal Leads following your account to enter.

Neil Patel utilized this technique and discussed in more detail here.

Right…

You now understand your Ideal Lead, have optimized your profile and have now started to drive traffic to your profile and should be experiencing clicks on your profile link leading to your landing page.

4. Tracking

Of course.

Expanding effort upon any marketing strategy is futile if you are not able to track results and compare to the resources (time and money) invested to calculate an ROI, here are the key metrics that MUST be tracked and optimized over time:

Landing Page Clicks: How many clicks does your profile experience?

Landing Page Conversion: What is the conversion rate on your landing page?

Lifetime Customer Value (From Instagram): What is the lifetime value of a customer obtained through Instagram?

Customer Acquisition Cost (From Instagram): How much does it cost to acquire a customer through Instagram?

Ok…

There we have it, the ultimate guide to Instagram lead generation.

The next to you reach for your phone to snap your croissant and latte, remember that your Ideal Lead is out there searching for you, it’s now up to you to find them…

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How to Get More Customers in Your Sales Funnel with Engaging Lead Generation

In business and in marketing – it’s all about the leads. But today, with so many choices, options and research available, getting the average visitor to take action is a lot more challenging than it used to be.

The core concept of the sales funnel itself hasn’t changed much: you’ll always get more interested prospects at the top than at the bottom. But how you engage with those prospects at every step of the funnel has changed dramatically. Let’s take a closer look at how you can not only entice more users to take the first step, but also brainstorm new and innovative ideas to keep them interested as they make their way through to becoming loyal brand advocates.

The Big Top-of-Funnel Mistake that Nearly Everyone is Making

By far the biggest problem I see marketers and companies of every size and scope making with regards to filling the top of their funnel is this:

Mentioning your product.

“But Sherice!” I can hear you saying, “They need to be aware of the product before they can take action!”

I understand your concern – but let’s look at this from the customer’s perspective. Say I’m looking to invest in a system that provides scalable, cloud-based hosting for my website. Much to the impulsive marketer’s dismay, at this point in the funnel, I don’t want to download a white paper about “How XYZ Company Delivers Scalable Cloud Hosting Solutions”, yet that’s exactly the kind of thing that’s thrown at me from every website.

Educate at the Top of the Funnel First

Take a step back and look at ways to educate, rather than persuade the customer. At this point in the funnel, they’re not looking seriously at solutions. They’re involved in the discovery process – learning what’s out there and what options they have available. You need to prove you’re even worth listening to by illustrating your expertise in a way that’s helpful and knowledgeable, not pushy.

This means filling the top of the funnel with bite-sized, visually scan-able tidbits of content in the medium and format your users prefer. And don’t just wait for the prospect to be the first to act – make sure that your content is hosted anywhere they might go as part of their research and discovery track, whether that’s video, infographics, podcasts or slide shows. They shouldn’t have to go to your site in order to learn more.

Here again, the information you send them shouldn’t be talking about your company directly at all, but rather acting as a guide to help them solve whatever issue or question they have. Going back to my previous example about cloud-based hosting, I may want to know about things like:

• Which apps/services are supported?
• What type of platform is best for my needs?
• What are SaaS, IaaS and PaaS?
• How close is the server to my location?
• What options do I have for databases and storage?
• How much of the server can I control or access myself?

And so on. Even at this “Awareness/Interest stage of the funnel, it’s best to educate and guide rather than push for a sale. Once the interest is piqued, the question then becomes, how can you carry over more of your prospects to the next level of the funnel?

In short, how do you tie this education and guidance to your brand without pushing the consumer away?

Going from Prospect to Purchase

This is the point at which many marketers jump ravenously on the sale, but too often, the pressure is too much, too soon. Remember, they’re considering your offer among many likely competitors so how you differentiate yourself (in a way that’s meaningful to the consumer) is what’s going to warrant them giving you even more serious consideration.

This is where you put your email marketing muscle into action – reach out and learn what your prospect’s biggest concerns are. What do they specifically have questions about? Then set your content and marketing teams about forging relevant, personalized drip campaigns that answer those questions in such a way as to position your product heads and shoulders above the rest.

Common techniques that work best at this time are things like feature lists, comparison charts and pricing breakdowns. Once the consumer sees exactly what they’ll get, what it costs and what it includes, it’s time for the sales team to make their move and reach out to the customer to start planting those “loyalty seeds”.

Things like a free, one-on-one demonstration of the product, a fully featured trial account and tutorials can go a long way in showing the customer that you’ve got their best interests at heart. If you’ve got new features lined up for release, invite them to be one of the first to see how these new updates will benefit their business and how to use them effectively!

Follow Up After the Sale

After the sale may feel like the time to celebrate – but resting on your laurels at this point just makes it easier for competitors to swoop in and convince your newly hard-earned customer that your product or service isn’t the best choice for them. This is why every customer should be looked at more as an ally rather than another notch on your sales belt.

Always be looking for ways where you can create the kind of experience that the customer just can’t help but talk about. It sounds cliché to talk about delivering a phenomenal customer experience, but doing so at every stage of the process – from the website to the technical support to the newsletter and every outreach avenue and touch-point in between is what creates unbreakable loyalty.

Here, things like reward/referral programs, loyalty exclusives, how-to newsletters, social media coupons and other incentives can solidify that loyalty. Don’t just throw sale after sale notification at them – make them an integral part of your brand, and your brand a part of their lifestyle. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling shoes or scalable hosting.

Always be looking for ways to add value – not what you think is valuable, but what the customer finds valuable. Every marketing initiative at each stage in the funnel should continually ask “what can we do to make this even better?”

By asking the right kinds of questions at the right points throughout the sale funnel process, you’ll not only win over more prospects, but you’ll be creating an iron-clad foundation of loyalty and communication that people (even your competition!) can’t help but admire and try to duplicate. Always look for ways to refine your funnel at any point where you find “leaks”. Seek out disconnects where the message doesn’t match the intent or where the content isn’t meeting the reader’s needs. An engaging sales funnel isn’t made of stone: it’s a fluid, ever-changing and adapting product that demonstrates precisely how you put customers first.

Have you created some unique, engaging or compelling content for your sales funnel that customers just can’t stop talking about? Tell us more about it in the comments below!

About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today!

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How Marketers Can Avoid the Dark Side of Content Marketing This Halloween (and beyond)

I don't know what it is but every year on Halloween the entire mood and feel of the day completely changes when the sun goes down. There is an eeriness that sets in, right? Now I realize that eeriness doesn't quite feel so, well eery as we get older but, there is still something undeniably different that happens on Halloween when the darkness takes over.

Tell me I am not the only one who thinks and feels this. Anyone? Bueller?

Ok, I digress.

Just as there is a dark side to Halloween there is irrefutably a dark side to content marketing. It's a place where goblins, spooks and creepy creatures rule the content marketing land and if you find yourself in this dreadful domain, you are more than likely committing one, or God forbid - all of the 7 1/2 deadly sins of content marketing.

Yes, 7 and a 1/2, you read that right. 

Ok so how do you know if you're indeed on the dark side of content marketing? Well you first need to know what those 7 /12 deadly sins are. 

To help you get started, here's the first 3: 

1. Making It All About You. The focus should be always on your customer. Quite simply they do not care about you, they care about what you and your product or service, etc. can do for them.

2. Not Adhering To The N.A.S. Doctrine. AKA the Not Always Selling Doctrine. In other words resist the temptation to try and sell something via every single marketing communication you have with your customer or prospect.

3. Wrong Church, Wrong Pew. Do you know your customers and prospects? I mean really know them? Or are you basically shooting blind, hoping for the best? Those of us in the real world know that far too many brands and businesses simply do not know who their customers are and therefore cannot target them in the first place with their content marketing strategies.

Be honest, are you committing any or all of these egregiously bad deadly sins of content marketing? 

It's ok if you are for help is here in the form of The 7 1/2 Deadly Sins of Content Marketing (And How To Avoid Them). 

Notice the parenthetical part of the title? Not only do we identify ALL of the 7 1/2 deadly sins of content marketing, we also tell you how to avoid them. Think of us a kind of Casper the Friendly Content Marketing Ghost. 

So don't just sit there. The dark side is calling you as we speak. Download The 7 1/2 Deadly Sins of Content Marketing (And How To Avoid Them) right now before it's too late. 

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