We’ve been genoodling…
Inspiration, Insights, and the Occasional Rant
Here’s My Stuff. Buy My Stuff.
The inbox is a cave, and a madly rushing stream runs through that cave. You can hear the stream rushing, but you can't see it, because it is dark. Every email in that inbox is a voice in the darkness, trying to get your attention. One is calling "I sell headlamps....
New Lead – Yeah! Now What?
What Happens After Someone Opts In? We as marketers work tirelessly to get leads to opt-in or subscribe…but then what? Often times, we see those new leads simply added to the standard email cadence, frequently without paying attention to how that lead came in, what...
If Content is King, What’s the Strategy?
Why Content Strategy Matters More Than Content Itself Why is content so important? "I've got a Contact Us button on every page of my website, and that's all I need, right?" Nope. "I've got a blog with a Subscribe button on it. That's enough, right?" Nope, again....
Personal Emails or Performing Emails – Pick TWO
Personal emails perform well. So here's my question: if personal emails perform well, why don't more people do them? There are two key aspects to personal emails. 1. The FROM address. That's right - who is your email from? In the inbox of your recipient, what does it...
Presentation Emails or Performing Emails – Pick One
Small and mid-sized businesses need to make every email count. Step One, is to "let go of the pretty" to increase the chance that the emails you send will land in the inboxes and that they will actually be read. Before you read further, make sure you understand email...
Pretty Emails or Performing Emails – Pick One
Do beautiful emails really grab the attention of your recipients? Do big graphics at the top of your email cause people to get engaged? Does the path to email success include a designer, some fancy HTML, lots of pictures, and special fonts? Why Pretty Emails May Be...
Surveys and Assessments – No More 1990’s
Why Traditional Marketing Surveys Don't Work Anymore Using surveys in an attempt to gather (extract?) information from prospects is an old marketing tactic. But, since most people hate surveys, what did we, as marketers, do? We attached prizes to them, right? "Fill...
Complacency is the Enemy of Success
I had an interesting conversation this morning with a client. His company is loaded with people who want to do the same thing they have always done. In their minds, it's working. In their minds, it's the way things should be. These people are complacent, secure in...
The Content Marketing Conundrum
Well, here's a content marketing conundrum. According to a 2015 study by Hubspot, based on results from their customer base, companies that publish blog posts 16 or more times per month get about 3.5X website traffic and about 4.5X more leads than companies that...
Get the Full Benefits of Marketing Automation
Marketing Automation Is More Than Just Sending Emails One common misconception about marketing automation is that it’s basically a life-support system for scheduling and sending emails. We’ve been told that humans only use 10% of their brains, right? Similarly, most...
Brainstorming Content Ideas – Five Steps to Great
Ask the Google for "holding a great brainstorming session" and you'll find over 54,000,000 (yes, 54 MILLION) results. Add in "content marketing" and you'll find thousands more. No need to wade through all of those (unless you want to) because we did it for you! We...
Push and Hope is Not an Email Strategy
Why 'Push and Hope' Email Tactics Fail Your Business I just got another email from someone I've never heard of, asking for a meeting to tell me about their solution to a problem I don't even have. The email gives me zero value; it's all about the sender and how...