5 Steps for Optimizing YouTube Videos

Not sure if your business should have a YouTube channel? Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd most popular and used search engine, with more searches than both Bing and Yahoo?

YouTube Logo

So yes, your business should most definitely have well branded presence on YouTube. YouTube can be one of your most powerful  tools for reaching and engaging with customers. To reach your customers, you not only have to create a YouTube channel and add videos, you need to make sure that your customers can find your videos and even drive them back to your website. Continue reading

2013 Marketing Trends: Changing Role of Digital Marketing

With any inbound marketing strategy, customer outreach must focus on multiple channels; and, as we move further into 2013, well-developed cross-channel targeting will become even more important. However, how do we know where to focus our marketing efforts in 2013? Luckily, the great minds at StrongMail, an email marketing and cross-channel solutions company, did a little digging for us!

In conjunction with SurveyMonkey, StrongMail, administered an online poll to learn how more than 1,000 business leaders saw their marketing strategies changing in 2013.

Expansion of Digital Marketing in 2013

Indicate the Marketing Programs You Plan to Increase Spending in 2013

Indicate the Marketing Programs You Plan to Increase Spending for in 2013

Based on the survey results, business leaders across various industries plan to have even more digitally heavy marketing strategies during 2013. Responders reported that they expected to increase spending on Email Marketing (55.5%), Social Media (51.8%), Mobile (42.8%), and SEO/PPC (39.8%) this year. In comparison, only 27.4% of responders thought they would decrease spending on Direct Mail efforts. Continue reading

5 Steps to Converting Leads: an Inbound Marketing Infographic

The  Whole Brain Group recently published an intriguing infographic explaining the key components of one of my favorite marketing methodologies, inbound marketing. I was drawn to this infographic because it compares traditional and inbound marketing before delving into the 5 steps to increase traffic and convert leads into customers.

In the infographic, the Whole Brain Group breaks down the inbound marketing process into the following five steps: Continue reading

Why You Shouldn’t Give Up on Email Marketing

While many companies are focusing on integrating social media into their marketing strategies (as they should), they are tending to also over look tried-and-true practices to reach customers, one of which is email marketing. While other online medias, such as Facebook and Twitter, continue to grow in popularity, I think that there may be a growing assumption that email marketing is becoming passé. But, this is assumption is very far from true. Email usage and reach is actually growing and is still a powerful tool for any marketer, and can still offer companies various insight into their marketing efforts, including: Continue reading

Agile Marketing: What is it and Why is it Important?

The following is my most recent blog post for Mudbug Media entitled “What is Agile Marketing and Why is it Important?”.

Agile Marketing…Is it just a buzzword or a new way of marketing that could have a big impact on productivity and creativity?

Agile originally began as an approach to software development, but the ideas and practices have been adopted by those with a variety of skill sets, including design and marketing. By using an Agile approach, marketing becomes about being adaptive and responsive. The following are a few of the key components of the Agile approach to marketing: Continue reading

The Challenge of Creating a Connection Between Multiple Brands

So you have been developing your online brand identity, making sure that your website is both enticing and user friendly. But, now imagine this challenge:

“There are five brands within a larger corporate brand. Each brand is required maintain their own online identity, but must also stay connected to the parent company.”

Yeah, I would define that as a very large, but very exciting challenge.

However, this is only one scenario for a company comprised of multiple brands. For one company it may be better to keep the brands separate (not creating any connection between the online identities of each brand), while for another company it may be best to completely intertwine all the brands under one umbrella. There is not a single answer for if and how a parent company should connect their various brands online, but below are a few examples of possible routes. Continue reading

How to Create a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

With a massive amount of emails delivered to our inboxes everyday, it can seem like a daunting task to get your email blast to stand out from all the rest. In addition, there are many factors to consider when developing an email marketing campaign, including:

  • email marketingWhat platform will your end users view the email in? (Apple Mail, Gmail, Outlook, or on their Mobile Device)
  • What day of the week should you send your emails to get the highest click through rate?
  • What is the desired action you want recipients to take upon reading the email? (Also known as your conversion)
  • Are you sending the “right” message to the “right” people? (Not all customers are alike, so not every email campaign should target every customer.)

However, when done correctly, email marketing is a powerful tool for reaching your audience. Email campaigns are targeted, allowing you to reach a section of your customer base with a focused message. Based on research from HubSpot, targeted and segmented emails have a higher CTR than mass email communications. For example, these emails can focus on an action that the recipient has already taken, creating a more personal connection.

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Marketing Explained Using the Laws and Principles of Physics

Dan Cobley, a marketing director at Google, gave a presentation at the TED Global 2010 conference titled “What Physics Taught Me About Marketing”. When I first saw the title of this presentation I was hooked, I had to know how can marketing and branding principles be explained using physics. Well, Dan Cobley explains just that using Newton’s second law, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the scientific method and the second law of thermodynamics. Continue reading

Mad Men vs. The Modern Marketer

Matt Wesson, a very talented Marketing Content Specialists at Pardot (and someone I am honored to call my friend), recently created a very fun and creative infographic that analyzes the evolution of the marketing and advertising profession, from Mad Man to Now.

In the infographic, Matt breaks down each aspect of both the 50’s/60’s marketer and the modern marketer; from the clothes they wear to the tools they use to reach consumers. Check out more about the evolution of “the art of influence” below! Continue reading

What Marketers Need to Know About HTML5

As marketers, it is important that we are knowledgeable about changes that could affect how customers and search engines interact with our clients’ websites. Whether you work at an agency, follow some of the popular marketing blogs, are tech geek, or are all of the above like me, you know that web development has being going through a change lately, known as HTML5.
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