No one likes a know-it-all, but everyone needs an expert. The digital marketplace has empowered consumers to research, learn, and compare all on their own. So much choice, however, can leave even the savviest among us feeling overwhelmed. Establishing yourself as a subject matter expert (SME) is the key to projecting your professionalism and setting […]

When you hear the phrase “branded content,” you may think of cheesy jingles or sponsorship billboards at your nearby little league field. But the twenty-first century world of branded content is a world apart, ripe with opportunities to create branded content in digital and physical spaces and across multiple platforms.   Branded content exists in […]

Let’s talk about improving your business-to-business sales enablement. Various and often imprecise definitions of the phrase “sales enablement” exist, so I’ll offer this succinct version from Salesforce as our working definition: “sales enablement is a collection of tasks and tools that are intended to improve the execution of key sales activities—activities like making sales calls, […]

Looking back, 2016 brought exciting new terrain to the world of digital marketing. But it also brought some complex questions about how the market would take advantage of new technologies and interfaces. This year brings more clarity on those questions, and new opportunities to build on what we know works best. So let’s take a […]

Recently, we looked at opportunities, drawbacks, and best practices for online influencer outreach. As a follow-up, I’d like to take a look at online influencer marketing’s cousin, affiliate marketing partnerships. Affiliate marketing partnerships basically turn online influencer marketing on its head. Normally, you compensate an influential figure to recommend your brand, without knowing how successful it will be. With […]

A couple of months ago, our reader survey results got us talking about the simple fact that content marketing is still our top priority. Engaging and relevant content is crucial to your brand’s success, but content strategy is just as important and often overlooked. The focus of content marketing is on designing content that represents […]

Paid Search Marketing Versus Search Engine Optimization If you’ve been online sometime in the past five years, you’ve at least heard the term SEO. Most of you recognize this to refer to Search Engine Optimization, what you do to your websites to make them rank better in Google. This is now understood to be a […]

The Predictive Analytics Story If you’ve been reading me for a while, you already know how important it is to capture data on your ROI. If you know what’s working, you can put your money in the right place. I discuss this at length in this post on calculating ROI. Predictive analytics is one way […]

I don’t know about you, but anytime I install a new app, I’m downright gleeful to click “Do Not Allow” when prompted to enable push notifications. My phone makes enough noises on a daily basis. I don’t need to add any more to the chorus. That’s why I’d like to talk about a less intrusive […]

I’ve written many times about how you need to have a plan when it comes to your content marketing strategy. “Come up with a plan”, however, is great item to stay on your to-do list until the end of time. Therefore, I’m going to break down and itemize each step to help you turn your content marketing […]

  When was the last time you accessed Facebook on your laptop or PC? According to the most recent data available on Facebook’s user habits, the odds are that it wasn’t very recently. This data confirms that, in fact, a full 92% of Facebook’s 1.71 billion active users access the site via their smartphones. The […]

Discovering Your Marketing Mix Last week, I talked about organic marketing and suggested pursuing a wide variety of digital marketing strategies in line with this approach. This week, I want to challenge you to step back and take a more holistic view by examining your marketing mix. The term “marketing mix” is a foundational marketing […]