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Lucky? No. Five Reasons Why You've Earned Your Success

A former client turned friend once told me, “I don’t believe in luck. Hard work, good decisions and passion are the contributors to success.” I’ve thought a lot about this sentiment over the years and firmly agree.

Because marketing today is harder than it has ever been, every now and then I love to dedicate a piece to all the email marketers out there working tirelessly to drive revenue for their organizations.

Here are some of the skills you’ve probably proven to master, showing how you’ve earned your place as a digital success story:

You know the customer. I would argue that no one on the marketing roster understands the customer better than the email marketer. As a resource that leverages first-party data, you have a keen definition of your customer segments and the rules that determine what segment a customer falls into. You never speak in generics, but in specifics.

You are left- and right-brained. To plan, produce and send one email campaign, an email marketer is making right-brained decisions such as creative and content. On the left side, you are putting on your technical, analytical hat to code the emails and report on the results post-send. I’m oversimplifying the process required to get an email out the door, but there are a lot of different skills at work here that require an email marketer not just to be creative, but to also be strong from a technical and analytical standpoint.

You are a natural educator. In every role I’ve ever had as an email marketer, I’ve been a teacher to others at all levels of the organization. Ever had a colleague with a campaign idea that was sure to get your program hurt from a deliverability standpoint? You probably had to explain how deliverability works and why the campaign didn’t make sense. Have your colleagues ever needed an explanation on what certain metrics mean? You probably took the time to explain the trends and why they were good or bad.

These are teaching moments where you have the chance to shine and educate others around you—from your level all the way up to the C-Suite.

You can form a fierce argument while also being diplomatic. Speaking of those teaching moments, you know when to push back while maintaining respect among your internal clients. When you see disaster ahead, you know how to prevent potential pain, even if it means saying, “Let’s test that” and carving out the problematic idea into a small subset of your email send to prevent disaster—while honoring the idea and giving it a legitimate chance as a learning opportunity.

You are a comfortable presenter. I have not met many email marketing leaders who lack skills in putting together a killer presentation. If you have mastered how to tell the story of how your program is driving value for your organization, you have positioned yourself well to move up within your organization and receive the recognition you deserve from your peers and leadership.

On this St. Patrick’s Day, I won’t say “You’re lucky” for working in such an exciting field. You have earned your place in driving marketing success, and for that I’ll say “You’ve earned it!”

What are some other skills that email marketers have? Let’s celebrate you by posting in the comments!

Lucky? No. Five Reasons Why You"ve Earned Your Success

Search: Top Five Developments In 2016 For Ecommerce, Mcommerce

Predicting future events isn’t easy, but Ken Burke, founder and CEO at MarketLive, outlines what he believes are the five most important developments taking shape in 2016 in ecommerce and mobile commerce as it relates to search and affiliate marketing. Pay close attention to the word “merchandising,” because it will become an important piece to search and affiliate marketing in 2016.

No. 1–Buy Anywhere – Today’s digital consumer wants to transact anywhere that is most convenient for them. Most transactions going forward are not going to be on the retailer’s desktop Web site — consumers will buy products from a variety of touchpoints, including directly via a banner ad, in a search engine, on a third-party affiliate site, via social media, or of course on a mobile device of any type. Once shoppers are ready to buy, nothing should stand in the way of a swift, smooth, and secure transaction, regardless of where it takes place. Full-fledged purchase functionality must be available across touchpoints that enables shoppers to “pick up where they left off” and transact with maximum efficiency.

No. 2–Merchandise Anywhere – Just as shoppers expect to be able to buy via any touchpoint, they also expect to access brand inventory regardless of where it resides — whether in the store where they’re currently browsing, in a warehouse, at a manufacturer’s drop-ship facility, or at another local outlet. While for most retailers, reconfiguring their infrastructure to enable this kind of nimble fulfillment is a steep challenge, it’s an essential move if they’re to keep up with consumers’ growing expectations for an array of fulfillment options to suit their budget and timing needs. By enabling “merchandise anywhere,” merchants can make “out of stock” disappointment a rarity, and instead find innovative ways to deliver what shoppers need, earning sales and trust. Search ads and third-party marketplace listings must be connected with these technologies to reflect accurate fulfillment options.

No. 3–Enhanced Digital Store Experience – The “buy anywhere” and “merchandise anywhere” trends will be manifested in a dramatic transformation of retail stores. Consumers increasingly expect physical locations to serve as digitally connected hubs where they can both see and try products and access the in-depth resources of the brand’s online offerings. Bringing mobile-based POS technology into the store is critical to a retailer’s success going forward, so that store associates can tap online assets such as detailed product specs, reviews, and buying guides to inform one-to-one selling interactions. And by integrating rich customer data into store associates’ online toolkits, they can provide retail shoppers with truly personalized in-store experience. Clienteling apps, social media integration, and mobile devices will all become part of the new intelligent in-store experience.

Real-time predictive promotions being served through search or affiliate channels could also be presented in-store via the mobile device. For example, if a shopper clicks an ad (via search or affiliate) or engages with a promotion with their mobile device, the retailer could then identify them when they are in-store and personalize the store experience to engage the individual shopper explicitly. Imagine clicking an ad on your mobile phone and then visiting a store and having the store associates be able to identify you and offer you the discount that you engaged with in the ad, bringing clienteling to the next level, and allowing affiliate credit for in-store purchases.

No. 4– Beyond Personalization to Prediction – While personalization has been part of the playbook since ecommerce came to life, predictive marketing and merchandising is quite new. This technology enables retailers to tap Big Data resources to identify shopping trends and patterns based on past behavior, with the speed to produce results within hours, not months. Marrying these insights with individual shoppers’ profiles helps merchants predict what the consumer will do next and customize the experience to a greater degree than ever thought possible. With predictive technologies, merchants can proactively offer the right products and offers at the right time in the right format to shoppers, winning sales and brand credibility as a result. Real-time predictive promotions and messaging could also be served through SEM and affiliate channels to drive significant engagement and personalization opportunities.

No. 5–Intelligent Merchandising – Merchants must be prepared to interact with shoppers multiple times prior to the first sale, while presenting a contiguous and unified brand story that anticipates their needs — and the standard must be even higher for existing customers who have a history of purchases and interactions with the brand that must inform every potential engagement. But this expectation from shoppers is difficult to meet for merchants who don’t have the time or the detailed data easily available to them to take their merchandising to an entirely new level. Now, however, they can let their commerce technology handle it for them, thanks to the advent of algorithmic merchandising. This sophisticated toolset is a self-learning system that uses the analytics from all brand touchpoints and determines the best merchandising strategy for individual shoppers, customizing the experience accordingly. Search or affiliate marketing can supply yet another layer of data about the shopper’s preferences which the retailer (or their technology) can effectively and predictively merchandise to further individualize the experience.

Search: Top Five Developments In 2016 For Ecommerce, Mcommerce

Five missteps of email marketing

Email is by far one of the best digital marketing solutions to have in your toolbox. However, with this form of communication brings plenty of room for error amid an industry rife with regulations, delivery, filtering and other technology concerns as well as a glut of ever-evolving best practices.

While email marketing is definitely not rocket science, a certain degree of skill and artistry is involved in crafting a winning email campaign. Proceed with abandon, and it’s likely you will end up wasting time and money on failed campaigns.

Email campaign failure can happen for a multitude of reasons. The five missteps discussed in this article are among the most common and easily avoidable offenses every online marketer should take proactive measures to avoid.

Being too formal

Online marketers can bore their audiences in several ways, from lackluster subject lines to verbiage-laden, text-only emails to emails that only discuss the company and provide nothing of tangible or even perceived value — the all-important “what’s in it for me” factor.

While email can feel one-sided, it is really intended to be a conversation, or the start of one. And, most savvy marketers understand this conversational concept. For better chances of success, include an enticing offer and an eye-catching subject line to encourage positive open rates. Design colorful and well-branded graphics to appeal to people’s love of visual content. Provide valuable resources, articles, offers and calls to action that truly give something to your audience. Ultimately, think about how you can provide value to those on your email list.

Bombarding inboxes

You know the feeling you get when you are interrupted by a pesky fly buzzing around your head, appearing again 30 seconds later and then yet again 30 seconds after that? Don’t be the little fly pestering people too frequently.

Of course, finding the “sweet spot” for the timing tolerance of each audience takes a little experimentation, observation and an understanding of the specific industry. Your targeted customers will love hearing from you if you are providing value in a way that gives them room to breathe — to consider your business and how it fits into their own needs and objectives.

Understanding the “pulse” of an industry and the standards by which they operate is a great starting point to determine a suitable frequency and timing of emails. When you find that sweet spot you’ll know it, and your audience will respond to your campaigns in kind.

Sending a confusing message

All too often online marketers try to cram too many messages into one email in hopes of accomplishing or conveying multiple things at once. There should always be one, clear call to action; and, any messaging, imagery and links should always direct customers to a landing page where they can act upon that main call to action.

When an email campaign is cluttered with multiple messages — for example, to purchase one thing, call for a free consultation, follow the brand and more — the recipient can be distracted from the chief reason for the email. Stick to one primary message, around which everything else is focused, and be sure to tell your potential customers what you want them to do next. Don’t trigger your prospective customers to wander aimlessly around your website or landing page.

Overwhelming the customers

Marketers get excited when they are embarking upon an email marketing campaign; it’s where the rubber meets the road. As mentioned, many marketers often try to throw everything they have at their audiences in the form of too much written copy and too many design features, such as starbursts or complicated shapes. While you can include all the bells and whistles from a technical standpoint, it isn’t necessary or even beneficial.

The best email campaigns are those that keep the design interface and messaging simple; this means clearly written and formatted content as well as clean, fresh graphics and design. Keep in mind, even the best email marketing campaign will not convey a message as effectively as a well-conceived and executed website. This is why the email campaign should compel the recipient to head in that direction, and facilitate in an intuitive, efficient and streamlined fashion.

Missing the target

At a high level, email marketing seems simple enough. However, when you dig into all your options with data filters in particular to specifically target certain audiences, it becomes clear just how complex the endeavor really is.

Today, online marketers have countless list segmentation options, but they often make poor choices when filtering their email lists. Many mission-critical segmentation selections can be considered, such as geographic, socioeconomic and demographic filters, which allow the user to refine a list.

For example, a localized Mercedes-Benz dealership may target potential customers who live within a certain ZIP or area code radius of its location, have specific interests and make enough money to afford a high-end vehicle. In this way, online marketers can use list segmentation filters to target an audience with a high likelihood of being receptive to a particular message.

Conclusions

Nothing in the advertising and marketing realm with notable upside comes without risk; there are definitely ways to waste money and ruin opportunities with email marketing. With that being said, there are even more ways to increase site traffic, lead generation and revenue, among other goals.

The key is to invest the time upfront to design an effective email campaign, which starts by heeding the blunders detailed in this article. For extra assurance, digital marketers often enlist the help of field experts and outside voices who can consult on the preparation process and catch errors that may have otherwise been missed.

When executed properly, email marketing can grow a business in a very strategic and calculated manner, not only delivering a good return on investment for a single campaign but also ultimately growing your business over the long-term.

Kevin Layton is CEO of Data-Dynamix, a premier source of demographic data, a go-to partner for delivering digital marketing campaigns and an expert in advertising sales training that was ranked 1,226 on the 2015 Inc. 5000. The company partners with a litany of top-tier ad agencies and media groups across newspaper, radio and television. Layton, author of the upcoming book, “Building Your Digital Marketing Machine,” is also a revered inspirational speaker on digital marketing, international business and business strategy. Reach him online at www.data-dynamix.com or via Twitter @DataDynamix1.

Five missteps of email marketing

Search: Top Five Developments In 2016 For Ecommerce, Mcommerce

Five Big Mistakes New Affiliate Marketers Make

Earning a reward in the form of a commission, by selling someone else’s products can be appealing to budding marketers looking to make money online. However, a lot of mistakes can be made when trying to establish your own successful monetised site. Below highlights some of the biggest mistakes prospective affiliates make when entering the affiliate marketing space.

Lack of research

A fundamental error is not understanding what affiliate marketing actually is, and consequentially, the ways in which it could best work for you. Too often people enquire on how to join affiliate networks as a publisher before having a website in place, which is essential to getting started in the channel.

Another common instance would be building a basic website which lacks strong relevant content, adding a few links and then wonder ‘why isn’t my site making any money?’

Once the value of the affiliate marketing business model is understood and the focus and purpose of your website is defined, then you can switch you attention to researching the actual products and services you wish to promote.

Pushing the sale

Placing too much emphasis on directing readers to a ‘Click to Action’ button to try to push a sale will inevitably have the diverse effect of pushing your site traffic away. You can see how this is an easy mistake to make, as ultimately you make money by driving people to an advertiser’s site to then purchase a product which you receive commission on. So placing ‘Buy Now’ buttons on your site seems like an appropriate call, right?

However, the key is driving relevant traffic, as the more relevant the traffic, the more likely people are to convert and generate you a commission. Therefore ideally you should aim to focus on credibility by becoming an authority in your industry and provide knowledge on the products or services you are promoting. Avoid just placing an affiliate link on your site, instead write some content around the product. Maybe you have tried and tested the product and this will help establish a connection with the reader. People are far less likely to purchase a product if they feel they are being pushed to purchase. Instead, focus on educating your audience on the product you’re promoting.

Once this has been accomplished, you will have become a valued source of information to those who use your site and a key component in their buying decision process. Only then are you likely to see sustained conversions being driven through your site.

Promoting irrelevant programs

Promoting as many affiliate programmes as possible in an effort to maximise your revenue streams may sound appealing to new affiliate marketers just starting out. However there will come a point where your site will lose its focus, particularly if you are trying to adhere to all of these programmes. As a result, content quality will suffer, alienating your hard-earned traffic which will eventually drive them away.

Instead, focus on a small group of relevant programmes your site will complement, as this will be far more manageable for you and far more rewarding for those who visit your site. Maintaining the purpose of your website and the confidence of your users you have established is key to running a successful affiliate site.

Radio silence

Another fallout from joining either irrelevant or multiple programmes is that you give yourself too much to do and can become too thinly spread to make the most of these relationships. This leads to many new affiliate marketers failing to speak to the advertisers who are likely to make the biggest difference to how effective your site can be. Building a relationship with all your key players, whether this is the advertiser directly, or with either an agency or network, will play a vital role in your success as an affiliate.

By establishing these relationships, you are able to let them know about the opportunities available on your site and the demographics of your audience. This helps the advertiser position you in their wider affiliate strategy, particularly if you are able to prove the success of promotions they have run with you with case studies. These could lead to either more promotions from the advertiser or a direct competitor. The more you know about the products you are promoting and the more the advertiser knows about your opportunities, the more effective you will be as an affiliate.

Inactivity

Arguably one of the biggest mistakes new affiliate marketers make is inactivity. Too often new sites are set up with content and links to advertisers and then the site owner gets comfortable, sits back and expects the money to just roll in. This is not how affiliate marketing works, you need to work at it.

You need to remain active with the work you put into your site, it’s easy to fall into the trap of regularly updating your content every week and sending out a blog post every day, to sporadically updating your site every few months. To keep your users engaged you need to keep providing them with fresh content that encourages them to keep coming back to the site, to see what the latest news and offers are on the products they are interested in.

Conclusion

Making sure you’ve done your research on both affiliate marketing and the products you will be promoting, whilst maintaining the focus of your site and the trust of your audience is pivotal to running a successful affiliate site. In most cases, affiliate sites fail when these objectives are either unaccomplished or become neglected.

These are just some of the mistakes I’ve seen new affiliates make but by avoiding these you can then establish a strong foundation to become a successful affiliate. This will take time, as you will have to work hard to keep your sites content relevant to constantly moving trends and work smart to maintain your relationships.

Five Big Mistakes New Affiliate Marketers Make

Five Email Marketing Tips to Power Your Marketing

According to McKinsey, email marketing is one of the most effective methods of customer acquisition. Here’s why: 91% of US consumers use email daily, 40% have more than one email account, and personal emails cut out the “noise” that’s popping up more often on social media feeds. I short, email marketing can be a personalize, direct line to a unique customer. So here are five ways to harness the power of email marketing for your business.

Design Custom Email Advertising

Print advertising is advantageous for brand recall. Customers see a print ad and, with advertising frequency, they’ll remember that brand when it’s time to buy. Email marketing is entirely different – it’s focused on action. Print is branding, email is action. So why are you using the same print creative designed for branding for your email advertising that’s designed for action? Email marketing lets customers click, buy, shop, sign up, register, share, like and donate instantly so create custom-made HTML emails that help you do just that! If you’re investing in designing strong print creative, then you should invest just as much into designing a custom-made email campaign.

Don’t Send Emails When No One’s Looking

You worked hard on coming up with a great original email (not a print ad) and an awesome call to action. Now, at 10 PM, you’re about to hit SEND. Wait, who’s checking their email at 10 PM? Some do, many don’t so why are you sending it now? Research when your customers check their emails, when they take action on your emails, and the days they prefer to receive emails about you. Here’s a clear example: don’t send an email out one hour before Shabbat but DO send an email out one hour after Shabbat, when everyone’s checking their phones & email.

Subject Lines Matter

Should we say “Free! Free! Free!” in the subject line or maybe “Special!!? Yes, your customers may be interested in that but they’ll never know about it… because your email went straight to spam.There are certain words, terms, numerics & symbols that may trigger spam filters in Gmail, Yahoo and AOL so you need to research what subject lines will help your email reach your intended destination – customer’s inboxes. Incorporate a sense of urgency as well without sounding too “spammy”. For example, massage the line such as “When You Buy One Pair of Tickets, You Get a Second Pair 100% Free!!!” into “Your Free Tickets”. See how different that line is? You got customers attention, they open the email to see if they won free tickets & they see how they can get free tickets. Don’t sell it all in the subject line; it’s meant to tease about the content of your email.

Don’t Do the Same Old, Same Old

Did you know that 41% of all emails are opened on mobile devices? Yet you’re still designing email campaigns for desktops. Mix it up! Still sending the same old content, same old deal, same old event? Mix it up! Send an email with different content, a unique event, a special sale. If customers know what you’re selling already, they have less incentive to open or click through your email. You should even consider selling less and informing more – 90% of consumers find unique content useful, which is why open and click through rates for newsletters, monthly bulletins, industry news and advice are higher than promotional emails.

Think Beyond the Click

Many people make the mistake of thinking it’s all about the click. The “click” isn’t a sale. The “click” is the first step in the decision-making process. The landing page after the click is more important. Think of the click as getting customers in the door; now you have show them a great in-store experience and valuable product line. Make your landing pages easy to navigate and focused on the sale. Customize your web landing pages to increase conversion rates. Pagemodo creates unique Facebook landing pages for your page that gets you the obviously intended Like but much, much more. Implement a 10-second pop-up on your website that can collect customer emails. Annoying? Maybe. Valuable? Definitely. Ensure your best products are right on the first page when customers click through your email, increasing chances of buying. When you think beyond the click, you’ll create a better experience at the best time – the time of purchase.

Email marketing is set to surpass $2.3 billion this year. It’s a smart investment when done right. So do it right with these seven tips.

Yitzie Hyman is the Director of Strategy at The Jewish Link of NJ and founder of Henry Isaacs Marketing, a marketing, design and digital ad agency specializing in Jewish & Kosher marketing. You can reach him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or online at www.henryisaacs.net.

By Yitzie Hyman

Five Email Marketing Tips to Power Your Marketing

Five Ways Pinterest Is Beating Facebook

This article is by Troy Ireland, managing partner at Digital Current, a conversion-based digital-marketing agency specializing in content marketing and SEO.

Pinterest has always seemed like Facebook’s cozy little sister. Instead of sharing news articles and memes, Pinterest users (mostly women) curate pages of living room furniture and Halloween party recipes.

But underestimating Pinterest would be a huge mistake. “As social networks go, Pinterest doesn’t get a whole lot of respect,” wrote Kevin Roose in a New York magazine article. “Which will make it even more surprising when Pinterest eats its competitors alive.”

That May 2014 prediction appears to be coming true. Just after the holidays, IBM Digital Analytics released a report showing that overall holiday online sales were up 13.9% for the 2014 season. They looked specifically at Facebook and Pinterest sales and reported on a very interesting statistic: “Facebook referrals drove an average of $101.38 per order, while Pinterest referrals averaged $105.75 per order.”

Since its launch in 2010, the scrapbooking, image-pinning site has been steadily growing and picking up pace. It is estimated to have approximately 70 million active users and is worth about $5 billion. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to Facebook’s 1.2 billion daily users and $210 billion market cap. But Pinterest is growing quickly and, unlike Facebook, the whole setup of Pinterest is designed to move products.

“Pinterest’s power is the volume of referral traffic it generates,” explains Jason Miles, author of the book “Pinterest Power.” “When it comes to that metric, it is already in very rarefied air. The top four sources of referral traffic are organic search, direct typing of a URL, Facebook and then Pinterest.” And if Pinterest can get to 280 million users, it could easily surpass Facebook in terms of driving Internet traffic (and purchases), according to Miles.

To help marketers take advantage of all of this user-generated enthusiasm, Pinterest has started selling Promoted Pins, which are ads that look like Pinterest images and content shared between users. “[They are] sounding the call that Pinterest is open for business and that it wants to compete for ad dollars with the likes of Google, Twitter and Facebook,” according to CNBC.

In many ways, Pinterest is actually already ahead of Facebook. “Pinterest Expert” Anna Cadiz Bennett talked to one of my colleagues about why you might be better off funneling your social media marketing funds to Pinterest:

Visual content marketing: The visuals on Pinterest are clear, clean and engaging. There are lots of reasons why visual content is important for a marketing campaign, but probably the most important is that it grabs instant attention and is quickly processed by the human brain.

Shelf life: Pins last and are easily available forever. On Facebook, they are around for only a few hours (if you’re lucky). “On Pinterest, everything you create and pin lives forever,” Bennett says. “I have blogs from two years ago that are still being shared. No other socials are doing that. In terms of ROI, that’s phenomenal.”

Intent to buy: If you’re lurking around on Pinterest, you are probably looking to purchase something. According to Shopify, “The average order coming from Pinterest is $80, higher than any other site including Google, Amazon and Facebook, which has an average of $40.” On Facebook (or Twitter) you tend to be there for a conversation.

Promoted Pins: Maybe the best tool out there for marketers. They hardly look like ads, they are heavily shared and they are now open to all advertisers.According to Pinterest, “Brand advertisers achieved about a 30% bump in earned media (free impressions!) from their campaigns.” Pinterest now even has an analytics panel as part of its Pinterest for Business tools.

Large female audience on Pinterest: Approximately 85% of Pinterest users are women — and women have $7 trillion in buying power. “Women on Pinterest are 30% more likely to shop or buy online than the average woman, and Pinterest users spend nearly two times the norm,” according to Comscore 2014.

This year, especially as Promoted Pins open up to everyone, will be telling as to how our companies and brands are affected by this relatively new stream of marketing. As marketers adjust their brand plans and start figuring out how to be successful on this powerful social media site, there may be a few growing pains. I would love to hear about any concerns or major problems you have had marketing on Pinterest for a potential future article. If you have your own conclusions about Pinterest’s marketing evolution please share them in the comments below.

Five Ways Pinterest Is Beating Facebook