Business tactics change. Great marketing doesn't.

Wow, you’ve got a lot to work to do!

Awareness and promotion. Lead generation. Content creation. Prospect and customer relationship tracking. Team and partner communications. Sales management. Testing and optimization. And, the list goes on and on.

So much to do, so little time in your day. It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is — trying to manage your marketing and sales effectively is enough to drive you bonkers. And if you’re not careful, get you sidetracked from your mission.

Most businesses, maybe yours too, have gone into deep thought on all of this, probably while sequestered the company’s secret bunker. Searching every corner of the Internet to seek out new tactics. Every time a viable app or online service is found another one pops up taking you in an entirely different direction.

It’s finally happened — marketing is now powered by technology. Well, that’s not really new news.

But here’s what’s new; technology is taking over more and more of marketing. Many companies have gone from feeling out of control because they are juggling too much to letting technology do their thinking. And they still feel out of control.

There has to be a better way!

Take a deep breath now. The good news is you’re still in control. You just have to take the strategic view and find the right tools to effortlessly execute your vision. Remember, tactics may change — great marketing doesn’t.

Here’s the key. Have strategic initiatives that’s right for your and your market. Plus, whatever you do, all the pieces have to fit together. That’s because every tactical element (application or service) that you regard as essential to your marketing efforts impacts all of the other components around it.

Silos are for storing grain and keeping it safe. In marketing, everything is connected and isn’t very useful if it’s isolated within a silo. Connect the marketing technology dots and everything will be fine.

Create a purposeful marketing tool stack. Let’s get this straight up front — when it comes to making your marketing easier, there’s isn’t a single online platform or piece of technology that can do everything. Your company has unique goals and needs. It’s up to you to decide what’s most important to accomplish and then search for the pieces of the puzzle. With over 1,000 marketing technology vendors claiming to be in an ever-increasing number of marketing categories you can get overwhelmed fast. A marketing tool stack, also known as a marketing technology stack, is a grouping of digital applications that businesses use to manage and improve their marketing activities, making time-consuming processes easier and much more effective.

Know which technology tools are foundational and essential. There’s so much to consider and it’s easy to quickly become paralyzed by the choices. To keep that from happening, start with breaking down your key strategic marketing initiatives. The “must do, must happen” of your business. This will keep you focused and prevent your search from becoming a never-ending scavenger hunt, taking you off course. Sure, there’s a lot to consider, but only define up to five areas that are critical and fundamental to your strategy and needs. Also, outline your workflow — how every chunk of the eventual stack impacts components above it and below it. In other words, every piece is essential to a strong marketing action plan and must work together to get you to where you want to go.

A brief guide to zeroing in on marketing technology stack elements. Strategic marketing initiatives are action oriented. For instance, turn, “We need to increase awareness and customer acquisition” into, “Let’s focus on increasing inbound/outbound content optimization and market interaction.” How? Videos, webinars, case studies, educational article, blogger outreach? Plus, how do you track and analyze to know what’s working and what’s not? Decide what make’s the most sense for your target audience in terms of how they find and consume information. Go find contenders — the apps that will facilitate the functionality you’re seeking. Quickly ascertain the cost per user and if the application will actually will do something useful without getting your bogged down. If it isn’t easy to learn and intuitive to use, toss it fast. Now, make sure whatever you consider as viable at this point will play nice and integrate with the other pieces of your marketing technology stack. Such as, make sure the pop-up call-to-action on your website asking visitors to sign up for your next educational webinar will automatically populate contact information in your chosen email marketing service.

Low-cost marketing stack tools. About now you’re thinking, “Time to get practical, point us in a direction with some examples.” This is risky since your business isn’t like the next. Yet, I do have some favorites I use or my clients have had great success with. The following tools will work as part of a core marketing stack focused on raising awareness, boosting interaction, and driving initial revenue — and not spend a lot of time and money. Customer relationship management: KarmaCRM or Capsule. Video marketing platform: Wistia. Email service provider: MailChimp. Social media dashboard: Buffer or HootSuite. Analytics: Google Anaylytics  or for a more robust tool that will collect customer data wherever it’s generated such as from your website or mobile app and then integrate with a ton third-party tools, Segment. Lastly, for a more complete, inexpensive marketing automation platform that allows you to use still use other core tools of your stack that may be in place, check out ActiveCampaign. There are many, many more I like but you’ve got to cut it off somewhere.

Creating a core marketing technology stack, and using the tools it contains, will improve productivity and the speed of reaching your revenue goals.

Don’t dwell on each element and agonize over your “perfect” marketing technology stack. A stack is not a standalone application, but a set of tools to manage the marketing and selling side of your business. That makes it easy to be an agile marketing organization, replacing the individual tools with new ones that make more sense.

Have you cracked the marketing technology code? Let me know if you try some of the applications recommend above, or share what you’re using now that helps your company to work faster, turn data into actionable insights, and makes it easier for your customers to get what they want and need.

Ron Stein is President of FastPath Marketing (www.marketing-strategies-guide.com) and the author of the Rapid Impact Marketing & Selling Playbook. As a speaker, coach, and consultant he works with small business owners helping them to accelerate the path between their vision and the actions needed to reach, win, and keep customers. Ron is the creator of the FastPath to More Customers Now! 7-step marketing system based on more than twenty years as a successful business owner, corporate CEO, business development executive, and salesman. He is also a mentor at two nationally recognized business accelerators. Ron offers one-on-one and small group mentoring, conducts seminars, and consults. He can be reached at 727-398-1855 or Ron@FastPathMarketing.com.

Business tactics change. Great marketing doesn"t.

2016 Prediction #1: Online Marketing Trends Will Change Web-Based Threats…

This is the first in our series of cybersecurity predictions for 2016. Stay tuned for more through the end of the year.

Marketing and advertising technologies have always been at the forefront of finding new ways to identify and track data, and security threats are never far behind. So, with 2016 looming, there’s no better time to look at Forbes’ “The Top 7 Online Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2016” and the resulting security implications. Forbes’ list is as follows:

1. Video ads will start dominating.


2. App indexing will lead to an explosion of apps.


3. Mobile will completely dominate desktop.


4. Digital assistants will lead to a new kind of optimization.


5. Virtual reality will emerge.


6. Wearable technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) will pave new ground.


7. Advertising will become more expensive.

One thing is for sure: some of these trends open new avenues for cybercriminals. Three key trends that stand out as potential security issues are: the explosion of apps as a replacement for regular websites, the emergence of virtual reality, and the expansion of wearable technology. Let’s take a closer look at just how each of these three trends could impact web-based attacks in 2016.

Explosion of apps

There are already apps for everything from accounting to web posting, with more popping up every day. The fact that most apps can do exactly what websites can do – and in many cases better – will lead to a volume challenge, considering how the sheer number of apps can potentially degrade security and be open to exploitation.

Emergence of virtual reality

A new phenomenon, with little regulation and standardization, virtual reality opens the door to new, never-before-experienced cyberattacks. Virtual reality platforms will connect to the web or web-based apps, again resulting in a broader base to launch cyberattacks for cybercriminals.

Expansion of wearable technology

The Internet of Things (IoT) is moving beyond its infancy. Many wearable gadgets offer access to the web and very little control for secure access. Yet, most devices will somehow connect to a larger corporate network. This provides cybercriminals with the benefit of a lower barrier to entry into any connected organization.

While all of these changes are important, I do not expect to see a major shift in web-based attacks during 2016. Instead, we will see an adjustment in the behavior of cybercriminals and their use of the cyberattack lifecycle, mainly in how they infiltrate companies.

It’s hugely important for companies to deploy good application identification capabilities within a security platform that offers a holistic and comprehensive approach to security, with web security providing a part of the overall protection. Focusing on web security alone will not be sufficient. Securing an enterprise or government means architecting security to both detect and prevent known and unknown attacks while safely enabling applications.

Want to explore more of our top 2016 cybersecurity predictions? Register now for Ignite 2016.

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2016 Prediction #1: Online Marketing Trends Will Change Web-Based Threats…

Should You Change Your Facebook Display Picture?

Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the US coupled with his meeting with CEOs of tech giants like Facebook, Google, SAP and Microsoft have initiated a wave of great hope and aspiration in the burgeoning tech savvy Indian populace. As a follower of current affairs and a conscientious citizen of the country, my initial reaction was similar, this notwithstanding my ideological leanings.

As I logged into Facebook on Monday morning, I found a barrage of updates of people changing their Display Picture (DP) to the Support Digital India theme (similar to what people did when gay rights were legalized in the US).

This mass behavior pattern on social media piqued my interest and I decided to unravel it further. Honest to my intellectual integrity, I wanted to first know what changing of my DP meant and whether it had any repercussions, hidden or otherwise.

This isn’t a sociological discourse on unraveling ulterior motives, but reading about this social media initiative did unsettle me and I’ll tell you why. By innocuously changing our DP as a mark of patriotism, you are giving consent to Facebook’s Internet.org campaign. That’s right, the same initiative against which Nikhil Pahwa and team launched a nationwide signature campaign, AIB made a video which went viral and people from all walks of life objected to on the basis of defeating the purpose of a free undistorted internet.

What amazes me is this paradox of public opinion – while on one hand there is vehement opposition against the internet.org initiative as it challenges the fundamental tenets of net neutrality, on the other hand creating your DP using fb.com/supportdigitalindia is in effect supporting this very demon.

This probably is a master marketing stroke by Facebook. Alternatively, there may be a correction statement that is released publicly when this issue does gain critical mass. For now though, one thing’s certain – tech based marketing campaigns are easily mobilized, especially when flavored with large doses of patriotism, and the debate on internet neutrality is here to stay for a while.

Should You Change Your Facebook Display Picture?

5 Ways to Deal with Facebook's New Algorithm Change

In case you somehow haven’t heard, there’s a new Facebook algorithm change.

Yes, the company has decided to make a few changes to its News Feed.

Right off the bat, the Facebook algorithm change gives priority to content that is directly posted by friends. According to Facebook’s blog, “content posted directly by the friends you care about, such as photos, videos, status updates or links, will be higher up in News Feed so you are less likely to miss it.”

Beyond that, Facebook users also get fewer updates about whether or not a friend has liked something or commented on a post.

Well, that’s it. Game over for organic traffic, right?

Come on, you can’t be serious. For starters, the Agorapulse Barometer determined that the average amount of organic reach that a page has per post on Facebook is 18 percent.

Sure, you’re not going to be able to spam your audience’s News Feeds anymore. But guess what? Spamming was never the most effective way of reaching your audience anyway. If you’ve been relying on that, your social media marketing strategy has been flawed from the start.

Ditch the Hard Sell

Alright, let’s all just take a step back and think about this Facebook algorithm change. Instead of approaching this from a ‘Why is Facebook doing this to us?’ stance, try to understand the logic behind this decision.

Now, Facebook may just feel like another advertising platform to you. But remember, at its core, it’s a social network. Social networks (especially the good ones) are built on the concept of stacking positive emotions. Interacting with your friends and learning interesting things are primary examples of this.

So how does the average person feel seeing your “buy our product today” post? At best, indifference. At worst? Annoyance.

Here’s the deal: you need to forget about traditional marketing. You’re on Facebook to connect. Save the converting for your website or blog.

Interact With Your Audience

Speaking of connecting, it’s amazing how few businesses actually do this. Part of engaging your audience is, well, actually talking to them. No one is saying you need to address every comment on every post, but you do want to develop a rapport with your audience.

Forget about the benefits of getting free feedback from the people you’re trying to sell to. By being accessible to your audience, you stop being a faceless entity that’s after their money and become the business that cares about providing value to their customers.

Provide Value, Not Email List Bait

Even though this tip is a bit more general, the Facebook algorithm change makes it all the more necessary. In fact, it may be the most useful piece of advice on this list for struggling business owners.

If you’re trying to trick your audience into signing up for your email list, you’re wasting your time (and a perfectly good opportunity).

Instead of focusing on getting people’s emails, think about creating a resource so useful that your audience can’t believe you just want their email address. Not only does this make you look like an authority on the subject, but it also increases the odds of that person actually staying subscribed to your emails.

Provide News, Not Self Praise

If you’re writing a post on Facebook, make sure it’s informative. Notice how we didn’t say ‘promotional’.

Pushing your own products might seem perfectly acceptable by traditional marketing standards, but Facebook isn’t about being traditional. Facebook is about connecting with your audience, plain and simple.

Give them the truth and they’ll respect you. Ignore that advice and you’re going to have a hard time getting people to take you seriously.

Never Settle

Now, building your brand is an important first step. In fact, it’s usually the main reason people picked your business over the competition.

Unfortunately, once a brand has been successfully built, most businesses get complacent. They don’t want to rock the boat.

Need an example? Take a look at AOL. Back in the late 90s, AOL wasn’t just a part of the Internet business industry, they were the leading Internet service provider of the time.

Those infamous AOL CD’s? They may seem laughable now, but they were actually a brilliant marketing technique that propelled the company into the mainstream.

Sadly, after struggling with the death of dial-up Internet and trying to compete with companies that embraced the future, AOL failed to bring anything new or exciting to the table and became a shell of its former self.

Moral of the story? Get with the times or get left behind. Innovation and expansion aren’t optional if you expect to run a successful business.

If you want to continue to succeed (especially on a site like Facebook, where novelty is king), you’ll need to constantly innovate and bring more and more to the table.

After all, when it comes to Facebook, you’re only as good as your last post.

Facebook Mobile Photo via Shutterstock

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5 Ways to Deal with Facebook"s New Algorithm Change

How Would An Email Tax Change Email Marketing?

On April Fools’ Day, Forbes ran a story about how Congress was considering a tax on email by amending the Internet Tax Freedom Act the next time it comes up for renewal. It was a great gag, and while I think there’s zero chance of any kind of email tax coming into being, it’s interesting to think about how the email marketing industry would change if some kind of tax were levied.

Possible Tax Schemes

About 10 years ago, I thought the email industry might actually benefit from having additional costs associated with sending. At that time, malicious spam was still a significant problem. Since then, ISPs have done such a stellar job of eliminating traditional spam from inboxes that the definition of the word “spam” now means something entirely different: email consumers no longer want, even if they opted in to receive it.

That said, illegitimate email still represents 95% of all email volume. That’s a lot of email for ISPs to filter through to get down to the 5% that’s legit. Even a tiny tax on each email sent would collapse any centralized sending of spam; however, it might be less effective in tackling the bot networks that are responsible for much of the spam that’s sent today.

Of course, part of the trick is how to actually implement a “tax” on email. One way would be through a bonded sender program, which would allow a few different schemes. For instance, each sender would post a bond, and every time recipient complaints exceeded an established threshold, money would be taken from the bond. When your bond runs out, all your emails get blocked until you replenish it. So essentially this would be a tax on spam and unwanted or irrelevant email.

Another way of using a bonded sender program would be to charge a tiny amount for each email delivered. That would instantly change our tolerance levels of inactive subscribers.

A twist on these ideas would be for the U.S. Postal System to start a white label email system. Just like with snail mail, you’d pay for postage –and through a revenue-sharing program with ISPs, you’d get guaranteed 100% deliverability.

In all of these cases, you pay money upfront to avoid potential deliverability problems that would otherwise directly cost money to fix through remediation, and indirectly cost money through the revenue lost from blocked messages to your subscribers.

The Current Tax on Email

The central tension in email marketing is that our subscribers’ time is far more valuable than the pittance it costs us to send them email. In my book, “Email Marketing Rules,” I refer to this as email marketing’s cost-value gap. Marketers fill this gap by sending relevant emails to subscribers who want those emails.

When marketers don’t fill that gap, they invariably suffer deliverability problems from high complaints and low engagement. This is essentially a tax that subscribers impose on marketers for wasting their time. And it’s a tax that marketers can largely avoid by (1) putting in place sensible permission practices and sound collection processes across all their email acquisition sources and (2) using personalization, segmentation, triggered emails, and other tools to consistently send individually relevant emails.

It’s this ever-rising tax imposed by subscribers that’s the reason email marketing is no longer cheap. If you focus on making your emails smarter and more relevant, you not only reap the benefits of higher returns and higher customer satisfaction, but also minimize deliverability taxes.

How Would An Email Tax Change Email Marketing?

Lift Division has a culture of change

The vibrant, glossy offices at Lift Division reflect the type of cool, adaptive and modern atmosphere the company emanates. The people at Lift Division are masters of change; their entire careers revolve around the constantly shifting digital landscape. The company itself has also been evolving since its establishment in

2010 and has undergone new management, new offices and offers new products and services.

Five years ago, Jamie Stephens, Josh Burrell and Travis Smith created the company Lift Division, which had a main focus of Web development and search marketing. In 2011 and 2012, there was an increasing emphasis at Lift Division on SEO and search marketing, and co-founder Stephens, who had more expertise in Web and product development, left the company to pursue freelance opportunities with larger clients.

In early 2013, entrepreneur Rusty Brett purchased Lift Division. Brett’s own startup ServiceNoodle.com had been one of Lift Division’s first clients. By merging the ServiceNoodle.com and Lift Division teams, Brett created a group of people with large differentiation of expertise, and Lift Division became the parent digital agency entity.

“I was always kind of trying to woo Jamie [Stephens] back over to Lift because our expertise in Web development was sites under $20,000,” says Brett, Lift Division CEO. “We had incredible SEO, search and content marketing experience, but we needed that person that could help us create and execute comprehensive digital strategies for much larger clients.”

Stephens returned to Lift Division in February of 2015 as the chief of digital strategy, and as a result the company was able to begin executing larger projects.

“I saw the direction that Rusty and the team were going, and I knew I wanted to get back full time with Lift to help bring value to clients both locally and nationally,” Stephens says.

‘It’s our approach’

Currently, Lift Division facilitates business growth, audience engagement and customer retention through inbound marketing techniques, including: SEO, content marketing, web design, app development, PPC, social marketing, PR reputation management, email marketing and video marketing.

“It’s not necessarily our products, but it’s our approach”, Stephens says. “Coming in and working with our clients in a design-centric way and a customer-centric way, our goal is to help them understand and refine what their vision is and then develop engagement strategies.”

Lift Division strongly believes in showing clients that their services provide actual value to their companies, which typically means growth in sales and other key performance indicators.

“All of our strategies are measurable and actionable,” Stephens says. “It’s super important for us to be able to show our customers that we’re doing something for them. It’s not just a glossy website but that their website is actually working for them.”

As Lift Division hires more people with different skills, the products and services it offers expand as well. The company prides themselves on being able to handle a lot of its marketing in house and being able to serve as a comprehensive solution for clients.

“There’s a lot of products we offer right now, and we want to focus on doing all of those even better,” Stephens says. “That’s a big part of it: finding new ways to deliver the same product with new tools and new systems in place to deliver results better for our customers. We’re not a cookie cutter agency; we want to make sure that we’re delivering the right strategies and the right tools for each one of our customers.”

Education and change

A challenge for the company is being able to keep up with the continually changing technology. As technology changes, so do the rules of the game, and sometimes it can be hard to keep up.

“The industry is in constant change, especially when you talk about how search results are displayed,” Brett says. “Everyone always goes back to Google, and Google is constantly changing. For example, starting April 21 Google is going to start penalizing sites that aren’t mobile responsive. That’s one of the constant challenges in the digital marketing space: to keep up with the times and help our clients adjust to the newest technology accordingly.”

According to Brett and Stephens, Lift Division puts a large emphasis on educating its clients on how it can keep their businesses up to speed when it comes to technology and how to make sense of the cluttered, chaotic Internet world.

“There are so many opportunities to try and spread your message between all the social media outlets; there’s so much chatter and so much noise,” Brett says. “You really need to pick one or two [social media sites] and focus on those really well as opposed to getting lost in all the opportunities.”

Since the company was established, Lift Division’s customer base has reached beyond Columbia. Lift Division has clients in Vancouver, New York, Atlanta and Denver. It has worked with major brands such as the U.S. Army and Gotham Culture. The company’s customer base largely consists of small to mid-size businesses, with one or two larger projects going on at the same time. Although Lift Division has been working on numerous national projects, the company wants to continue to help local businesses grow by educating them.

“Education is a big piece of what we want to do,” Stephens says. “There are a lot of things businesses can do themselves to help lift their brand and lift their engagement with customers, and we want that information as accessible as possible.”

Lift Division has been through many changes since 2010, and that’s what the company thrives on: a culture of change. The company is thriving in an industry filled with complexities and uncertainties, and it feeds off the opportunity to help businesses adapt, just like it has.

“As a company we try and develop a culture of change and being nimble,” Stephens says. “What we’re doing today to help businesses grow could be completely different in two years, but if we can build a culture of change, and we can have people that are able to be nimble and able to adapt to change, we’re always going to be able to deliver winning strategies and winning solutions to our customers.”

Lift Division has a culture of change