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How to Stalk Your Competitors in 10 Minutes [Marketing Hack]
You’re a rockstar inbound marketer. You spend your time figuring out how to increase your web traffic, generate more leads, and analyze your marketing analytics so you can keep your competitive edge on the web. Come on, what’s more rockstar than that?
There’s just one thing getting in between you and inbound marketing dominance — your competitors. And what you don’t know about your competitors may actually be doing more harm to all your hard work than you realize. But what’s a marketer to do?
Luckily, in the immortal words of Apple, there’s an app for that! It’s called the Marketing Grader app, and with it, you only need about ten minutes every week to stay up to date on your competitors. This ensures you’re doing the work you need to maintain your stellar online presence and slowly overtake that your competitors. Learn how you can monitor your competitors in just 10 minutes a week with this free marketing web app — let’s get started now by setting it up!
Set Up the App
Go to marketing.grader.com and run a free Marketing Grader report — it’ll be done in a flash!
Once you’re in the report, click on the Sign In link on the top, right-hand corner of the application.
If you don’t already have a HubSpot account, Register for a free Marketing Grader Account. If you already have a HubSpot account, sign in!
Enter your competitors’ websites so the tool can start tracking them. For the sake of this example, we’ll pretend we’re Dunkin’ Donuts, and we want to track Starbucks.
Voila! You’ve just set up competitive tracking in the free Marketing Grader app! Now, let’s learn what to do with the information.
Weekly Check-in (5 Minutes)
Now that you’ve set up your Marketing Grader app, set aside 5 minutes each week to log in at marketing.grader.com to see how you are faring against your competitors. When you first log in, you will see the Grade History tab. The Grade History tab lets you see how the Marketing Grade for your website and your competitor’s website has changed over time. To get really specific feedback, click on the By Metric button, as indicated by the blue arrow in the screenshot below.
When you click on the By Metric button, you’ll be able to explore the following metrics Marketing Grader is tracking to get specific ideas for ways to improve:
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Indexed Pages – We all know that Indexed Pages can increase your website visitors by up to 55%, so it’s no surprise that this is a big metric to keep an eye on for your competitors. You don’t want them stealing your traffic, do you?
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Linking Domains – Inbound links are the best way to increase your web authority, but the key is breadth of links rather than depth of links. Make sure your inbound links are evenly distributed across a number of domains to get the most impact!
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Facebook Fans & Twitter Followers - Sure, social media is a great way to build a community to evangelize your products and service. But the bigger your social media following, the more eyes on your oh-so-valuable content — that’s what we like to call “reach,” and it’s critical for getting traffic and leads.
All of this nitty gritty analysis is great, but the Marketing Grader report you know and love is still available to you, too. If you want to see that analysis broken down into the three sections that matter to you most — Top of the Funnel, Middle of the Funnel, and Analytics — you can always head back to the Reports tab. In case you forgot, the top of the funnel addresses how you bring in traffic, the middle of the funnel addresses how you convert that traffic into qualified leads, and analytics addresses which marketing activities work, and which do not.
Develop an Action Plan (5 Minutes)
So you’ve set up your Marketing Grader app, you’ve seen the competitive data — now what? Now, it’s time to craft your plan of attack! Start by asking yourself 2 questions:
1) Where did you underperform against your competitors?
2) What actions can you take to improve your performance in these areas?
Let’s use Dunkin’ Donuts as an example. Here in New England, there’s a pretty big loyalty divide between Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks — except on the web. Dunkin’ Donuts has a lower overall Marketing Grade and is lagging behind Starbucks when it comes to indexed pages, linking domains, and Facebook fans.
So what would you do if you were Marketing Director of Dunkin’ Donuts?
That’s right! You would need to beef up your content strategy; I’d get started with more frequent blogging as the most efficient way to solve your problem with indexed pages and linking domains. Think about it — every new blog post you publish is a brand new page for your website, a brand new opportunity to generate inbound links, and a brand new piece of content that you can feed to your social media followers. Talk about a powerful marketing opportunity! And you’ll not only be able to identify this opportunity with the free Marketing Grader app, but track the impact of your efforts in just a few minutes every week.
See? You can handle this! Take your competitors by storm with this new weapon in your arsenal! Now, let’s get started…
Have you started tracking your competitors’ online performance yet?
Image credit: Gamma Man
20 Things Every Graduating Marketing Student Needs to Know
It’s college graduation season! Graduation caps are flying through the air, names are being mispronounced, and awkward questions about future careers are being asked. What’s missing? A crash course when it comes to what marketing students actually need to know to enter the real world of marketing.
Unfortunately, featuring your fancy new diploma with the words “B.S. in Marketing” does more for fantastic graduation photos than it does for fantastic post-grad jobs. The sad truth is that most marketing students aren’t adequately prepared for the real world.
To all you current and future marketing students, here’s a list of 20 things, under the umbrella of five key categories, of what you actually need to know before entering the professional marketing world. The list is a collection of advice from current members of the HubSpot marketing team — including full-time marketing professionals who have graduated in years past as well as marketing interns who are graduating this year or in the future.
Academics
1. Don’t be afraid of numbers.
I can’t tell you how many students I’ve come across who tell me they avoid taking any classes that involve quantitative analysis or statistics. News flash: marketers need statistics. You need to be prepared to analyze everything you do. Don’t use the excuse that you plan on being a “social media marketer.” I’m on the HubSpot social media team, and I spend every single day looking at and interpreting charts and graphs. You need to be able to look at a spreadsheet of numbers, make the proper calculations, and analyze what they mean. Otherwise, you’re wasting a whole lot of time making decisions without proof that they work and/or benefit your business in some way. So pay attention in stats.
2. It’s not all about the Four P’s and C’s of Marketing.
Whether your marketing classes preach the P’s or C’s of Marketing, it doesn’t matter. While they can help introduce you to the core concepts of marketing, the chances of you dealing with a real-world marketing situation by brainstorming how you meet price, product, place, and promotion is unrealistic. You need to be thinking about much more, which will come in later parts of this list.
3. Your classroom doesn’t teach you to think on your feet.
Simulate “real-life” scenarios as much as you want, but you won’t actually learn to make important decisions in tight time frames until you’re managing real dollars, working to uphold a real company’s reputation, and investing your energy in real projects. You can’t practice it either. You have to be there and do it a few times, and then you’ll learn. Use internships as an opportunity to do this, which takes us to our next section.
Experience
4. Having an internship on your resume isn’t “impressive.”
You had a summer internship at a marketing agency last summer? Great! So did everybody else. The fact that you had an internship is not impressive, it’s what you did while you were there that is (or isn’t). Students have accepted this false notion that even if you’re just answering phones, the fact that you had some big company’s name on your resume will get you a job. It might get you in the door for an interview, but if you can’t share the benefit you provided to the company, you won’t be seen as a valuable resource.
5. Prove your value and capability.
On the topic of using internships to think on your feet, don’t be afraid to take initiative either at your first job or internship. Don’t just let your boss tell you what to do. I once had a professor ask my class, “How many of you would dare say something against your boss?” I was the only student to raise my hand. If you think your boss is wrong, there’s nothing wrong with speaking up — so long as you do so respectfully and with sound reasoning to back yourself up. You’re never going to learn if you just take what people tell you for granted. The same goes for professors. I once started a “marketing war” with one my professors by debating his suggestions. Which one of us was right, no one can say, but the value we both got from discussing our opinions was much greater than knowing who was right.
6. Make the most of your internships.
Okay, so we’ve already established that it’s not just about having an internship; it’s what you do there. A subcomponent of having great internship experiences is trying different things. If you’re interested in marketing, don’t just apply to internships at marketing agencies every summer. Switch it up and test your skills in different marketing environments, such as at a company that executes its marketing in-house. That way, you’re staying true to your ultimate goal while also using your talents in different types of environments. Another great thing about this is, you’ll learn which type of marketing job you’re best suited for.
7. Your laundry list of extracurricular activities doesn’t make you an expert.
I get it — you love being involved in every organization you can possibly be a part of. You think putting it all on your resume will show your great versatility and extensive experience. But all it really does is confuse recruiters. I’ve heard employers say they get turned off by students who seem too involved because they don’t show any one true strength they can bring to the table. Instead of being an expert in one area, they just have their toes dipped in a bunch. Employers are looking for something unique that you can do, not that you have tried everything — that’s what marketing teams are for. If you’ve participated in a lot of different activities in college, narrow down the few that you can actually say you’ve learned from, excelled at, and helped you grow.
8. Don’t make your skills sound more impressive than they are.
Don’t set yourself up for failure. If you make your accomplishments sound better than they actually are, you’re setting up high expectations for yourself. And if you fail to meet those expectations, the trust an employer has in you will fade away instantly. You may even get fired, and that’s probably worse to explain in future interviews than having no prior job at all.
Marketing
9. Marketing moves fast.
Chances are, whatever your professor taught you your freshman year of college no longer applies. Need an answer to a pressing marketing problem? You won’t find it in that years-old textbook. Effective marketing isn’t about looking up the answer, it’s about creating the answer. For example, social media wasn’t taught in a classroom until recently, yet it’s been around for years. Nobody taught professional marketers already in the business how to “do social media”; they had to figure it out on their own. That’s your future: figuring out marketing. Forever.
10. Marketing isn’t about pretty pictures and viral videos.
Effective marketing campaigns focus on creating content that benefits your audience. You can’t spend your marketing career creating humorous videos for the sake of bringing attention to your brand. You need to be prepared to think critically and analyze the needs of your target audience. What do they want? What are they confused about? How can you best serve them while serving your business? Answer one of these questions correctly, and your content will naturally become viral.
11. Marketing is not just about branding or awareness — it’s about making money.
Gone are the days of going to the marketing department for happy messages and to Sales for revenue — today, the two must work together. We keep talking about how everything you do should benefit your company, but haven’t said what that benefit is. The benefit is simple: revenue. What is the return on investment of that email send? That tweet? That press release? Each of these efforts should be positioned to represent your company culture, but they need to fit into the sales cycle. They need to have a monetary value.
12. Marketing doesn’t have to be evil.
The negative connotation surrounding “marketer,” “public relations professional,” etc. is pretty pervasive. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to live up to those standards. Don’t lose your morals and ethics when you graduate — they need to be omnipresent in your marketing career. And yes, it is possible to create marketing that people actually like.
13. There’s more to marketing than big brands and agencies.
Yes, you can work at a marketing agency. And yes, you could work for a big brand like Nissan or Pepsi. But there are SO many more options. What about working in-house at technology company? A small business? A hospital? Just because your professors only talk about the campaigns big brands have executed, doesn’t mean those are the only marketing jobs out there.
Personal
14. Don’t be afraid to be wrong.
How many times have you said, “I thought that but didn’t say anything.” Well, if you ever get to that point, it’s too late. If you have an idea or opinion on something being discussed, speak up! Experience helps create proper judgment, not ideas. Anyone is capable of thinking of the next big thing; it’s just a matter of not being afraid to share it.
15. You are your own best case study.
Prove your skills by marketing yourself. Don’t wait for someone else to give you the opportunity. Start a blog about marketing (or something else you’re passionate about) and demonstrate your knowledge of the industry, your writing ability, as well as your ability to build an audience online. Invest time in building your social media reach, and leverage LinkedIn to connect with other marketing professionals. Demonstrate your passion for marketing by properly marketing yourself. If you can’t market yourself, how will you market for others?
16. Grow thicker skin.
As a marketer, you’ll have to deal with complaining customers, social media bashers, unresponsive sales reps, frustrating clients. The list goes on and on… and through it all, you have to bite your tongue and let them feel like they are always right. If you get too emotional over how people treat you, you won’t last in the business. Take all negative feedback as constructive criticism, and spin it into something positive.
17. Never burn bridges.
That annoying teacher’s pet who never stops talking in class next to you? She may end up being your manager one day. Or your co-worker. Or the woman who gets to decide if a company hires you. You never know where people end up.
18. Network like crazy with everyone.
Yes, you’ve heard this before. But the important part of networking is doing it with everyone. If you decide you want to work at XX company, don’t only find ways to talk to people from XX company. Maybe that random stranger in the corner from Y company will one day be an employee at XX company, and then you’ll be bummed you missed the opportunity to tell that person why you rock. Point is, you never know who could end up helping you out the future. Get to know as many people as you can.
Miscellaneous
19. Get Familiar With HTML/CSS
You don’t need to be a webmaster, but you do need to understand the basics. What happens when your web designer goes on vacation? What happens when you need to make a quick fix on your website? Or even just need to talk to your web designer? You don’t want to sound like a complete doh-doh head. Understand how coding works and be prepared to make little tweaks.
20. Understand the difference between B2B and B2C.
I’m surprised I was never exposed to such basic acronyms at school, but most businesses are classified this way. B2B = business-to-business. B2C = business-to-consumer. Look up the difference; it’ll teach you a lot about different forms of marketing, and possibly where you want to work one day.
From the marketing team at HubSpot, we hope you found this list beneficial in planning your marketing career. Cheers to you!
Have any additional tips for 2012′s marketing graduates … and beyond? Is there anything else you wish you’d known before graduating?
Facebook Study Shows Brand-Related Posts Drive Highest Engagement
What’s the secret to an engaging Facebook business page? According to the results of an internal study revealed by Facebook yesterday, posting content about subjects related to your brand is your best bet. The study sought to identify how post topics relate to engagement, which can help marketers understand which of their content is the most effective at getting fans to engage with their Facebook business page — both organically, and through Facebook ad and Sponsored Stories promotion.
About the Facebook Study
Facebook’s study looked at four weeks’ worth of page posts from 23 brands spanning six industries, and Facebook categorized each post into one of three buckets:
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Posts About Products or Services: e.g. “Our new resort just opened! Book your trip today.” (Facebook’s travel brand example)
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Brand-Related Posts: “I decided to go on my first cruise because______.” (Facebook’s travel brand example)
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Posts Unrelated to the Brand: “Hang in there everybody. Monday will be over before we know it!” (Facebook’s travel brand example)
Study Results
Overall, Facebook found that posts that fell into that second bucket (brand-related posts), were the most significant predictor of page engagement.
And remember, according to Facebook, an ‘engaged user‘ is a person who has clicked anywhere on your post. In other words, engagement means that a person has performed an action on your post, such as liking it, sharing it, commenting on it, clicking on a link you share, viewing a picture, watching a video, answering a question you pose, RSVP-ing to an event you post, etc.
Facebook also reported on several content posting best practices to consider, depending on your Facebook marketing goals:
- Goal = Generating Shares: Facebook recommends posting about topics related to your brand and leveraging photos, photo albums, and video content.
- Goal = Generating Likes: Facebook suggests posting about topics related to your brand and using a clear call-to-action, such as “Like this if …”
- Goal = Generating Comments: Again, make the post about your brand, and spark discussion by posing a question in your post.
Pair Best Practices With Your Own Facebook Page Insights
Overall, the results from Facebook’s study are probably what you’d expect. It’s easy to understand, for example, why a reliance on product-specific posts would generate less engagement. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if a user is following your brand on Facebook, they’ve already had some initial interest in your brand that made them want to follow you. As such, posting content unrelated to your brand — like the latest internet meme that has nothing to do with your business — is unnecessary. So it’s understandable that going the middle ground, and focusing on brand-related content, is the best driver of engagement.
That being said, marketers should pair this knowledge with the data they gather from their own page’s Facebook Insights to make the best decisions about their Facebook content strategies. To learn how to analyze your Facebook Insights to inform your content strategy, check out our informative blog post and video on the subject.
And hey, if your brand can be incorporated into that popular new internet meme, go for it! HubSpot’s own Facebook page has had success with this very tactic, which is evident by the screenshot below.
What do you think of the Facebook study? How does your Facebook content strategy stack up according to Facebook’s content recommendations?
Image Credit: Sean MacEntee
All Marketing Should Be Optimized – Geoff Livingston & Gini Dietrich
[Note from Lee: The growing trend towards integration of marketing and communications disciplines has brought a tremendous demand for guidance and insight. I'm happy to say that my friends Geoff Livingston and Gini Dietrich have published a new book about just that. We rarely publish guest posts but the message of integration and optimization in [...]
Google Rolls Out Knowledge Graph to Make Search Results More ‘Human’
Today, Google announced the rollout of its Knowledge Graph, which will cause a big change to how results are delivered in the SERPs. Basically, the intent behind the Knowledge Graph is for search engines to think more like a human — and deliver results that reflect that. It’s gradually rolling out in the U.S. as we speak, but you might not see it for yourself quite yet. After the initial rollout is complete, Google will expand the Knowledge Graph to searches on mobile and tablet devices, then to languages other than English.
As Google puts it, Knowledge Graph, “taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.” Wait. What exactly does that mean? Let’s take a deeper look at this rollout, and try to make things a little clearer!
What is Google’s Knowledge Graph?
To explain the Knowledge Graph, let’s all pretend we’re conducting a search in Google for the term ‘Taj Mahal.’ Before the Knowledge Graph, Google simply saw that query as a string of characters; but it means much more than that to you, a human, right? If only search engines could understand ‘Taj Mahal’ like you understand it, the results would be much more relevant to you! That’s exactly what the Knowledge Graph will help Google do, and as a result, users will see improved search results.
So think about it — what does Taj Mahal make you think of? A historic monument? A casino in Atlantic City? A musician?
I guess it depends on the person — and that’s what makes this update so cool. As Google puts it, Knowledge Graph, “understands real-world entities and their relationship to one another: things, not strings.”
How does it do that, though? Well, it taps into public sources of information like Wikipedia, Freebase, and the CIA World Factbook for information, couples that with information pulled from more than 500 million other objects, and augments it all with more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between those objects. If you want more in-depth understanding of how this works on the backend, well, get a job as a Google Engineer, I suppose. Or at the very least, watch this video before we get into why the Knowledge Graph is so cool!
Why is the Knowledge Graph Cool?
Because it will make Google search results better, plain and simple. It’s doing this in a few ways:
1) Searchers are more likely to find the right thing. Like we referenced above, a search for ‘Taj Mahal’ could mean you want information about the monument, the musician, or something completely different. With the Knowledge Graph, you’ll be able to narrow your search results to only include what you really want. Just click the link of the Taj Mahal you really want as indicated in the image below, and you’ll see the results you actually wanted to see. Now Google can understand the nuanced meaning behind queries of this nature like the searcher intends the search engine to.
2) Searchers get an accurate summary of facts. Because the Knowledge Graph allows Google to better understand a query, it can them summarize content related to that topic. For example, a search for ‘Marie Curie’ could yield facts like her birth date, education, and scientific discoveries. To determine which facts searchers actually want to see, the Knowledge Graph looks at what other searchers have been asking Google about the item. For example, searchers may have been more interested in Marie Curie’s scientific discoveries, and less interested in, say, her favorite food, so facts are displayed to reflect those interests.
It is also able to pull in relevant facts because, like we stated earlier, the Knowledge Graph understands the relationships between entities. So the Knowledge Graph understands that Marie Curie is a person, she won a Nobel Prize, she had a husband named Pierre Curie, and Pierre Curie claimed her third Nobel Prize — all of these facts are linked within the Knowledge Graph as items that have a relationship, not just disparate, unrelated objects.
3) Searchers discover new information they wouldn’t otherwise find. With all of these new facts popping up in search results with the Knowledge Graph, searchers will be able to learn information about their query that could open up a whole new set of inquiries. Google uses The Simpsons as an example to demonstrate this benefit:
Apparently, Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, got the inspiration for the name of three of his main characters from his parents and sister! Google hopes that this will help them “answer your next question before you’ve asked it, because the facts we show are informed by what other people have searched for. For example, the information we show for Tom Cruise answers 37 percent of next queries that people ask about him.” Think of it kind of like the ecommerce recommendation engine … but for organic search!
Does the Knowledge Graph Change How Marketers Do SEO?
To put it plainly, we don’t know. Google made no comment on whether the Knowledge Graph would affect search results — although if it was going to harm any businesses, we’re confident some statement would be made. But my educated guess is that the Knowledge Graph only serves to solidify the statements Google has been making surrounding its Panda and Penguin algorithm updates. Essentially, write for humans, not for search engines. That also means you should be creating comprehensive content. Not only do humans want the whole story, but the Knowledge Graph will likely see content that covers all of the facts (and their relationship to one another) as incredibly useful to humans and their surfacing of relevant facts. So if you’re a good content creator and legitimate search engine optimizer, the Knowledge Graph should be in your favor — but as always, we’ll keep you updated if we learn anything different.
What do you think of Google’s Knowledge Graph? Do you think it will change the way marketers approach SEO?
Image credit: MoneyBlogNewz
7 Enlightening Infographics About Email Deliverability
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. It doesn’t matter how great your email marketing is if nobody can see it. And getting hundreds of thousands of eyes on your amazing email marketing campaigns begins with email deliverability.
There’s actually quite a lot to take into account to ensure your emails actually get delivered to a recipient’s inbox. Your list has to be healthy (if you’re curious what makes up a healthy email list, take this 5-question test we developed); you need to develop and maintain a high Sender Score; you need to segment your email list like a pro; and the list goes on.
Furthermore, data from ReturnPath’s Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report has confirmed the problem email marketers are facing. Only 76.5% of commercial emails sent reached recipients’ inboxes in 2011, and email blocked and flagged as SPAM increased 24%. So what are email marketers to do? Brush up on their SPAM and email deliverability 101, that’s what. So we’ve compiled 7 informative infographics that give a rundown of what SPAM is, why it matters, and how you can ensure your email isn’t viewed as SPAM so it gets into inboxes. Be sure to bookmark your favorite ones to help you in your next email marketing campaign!
7 Infographics About Email Deliverability
1) SPAM vs. Whitelist by EmailExpert
2) How to Improve Email Deliverability by Pure360
3) SPAM: More Than an Annoyance? by WebpageFX
4) History of the SPAM Invasion by Rackspace
5) What if Facebook Looked Like Your Email SPAM Folder? by Neolane
6) 10 Steps to Seamless Inbox Delivery by Marketing Technology Blog
7) Email Campaign Delivery Checklist by Pure360
Have you come across an awesome infographic about email deliverability? Share it with us!
Image credit: Ecstatic Mark
20 Clues Your Marketing Stinks, Straight From the Horse’s Mouth
If there’s one thing that makes our toes tingle (other than inbound marketing, of course), it’s seeing examples of marketing done right. Great marketing makes us excited to be working in a trailblazing industry where other marketers are doing seriously innovative things to make marketing people actually like.
But to get so excited about awesome marketing means there’s another end of the spectrum. A dark side where email spammers, poor segmenters, and keyword stuffers live trying to pass off their activities as marketing. Those guys give legitimate marketers a bad name, and the worst part of it is, sometimes they don’t even know what they’re doing is an indication of seriously stinky marketing. Enter this blog post.
We know what in marketing annoys us, but we were curious what our audience — made up of business owners, marketers, content creators, and consumers — had to say about the matter. “What annoys you about marketing?” we tweeted, and the answers poured in, straight from the horses’ mouths (our target customers!). We sorted out the top 20 that really grind our gears, too, and have compiled them below for your reading pleasure. And while you’re reading, ask yourself whether you’re guilty of any of these warning signs of a cringeworthy marketing presence.
20 Hints That Your Marketing Stinks
1) The ‘Party Planner’ Stereotype: Real marketers know that marketing isn’t about planning parties and sending out press releases; they see event marketing and PR as two parts of a larger inbound marketing strategy. Without a comprehensive, integrated approach to your marketing, your business will never reach its full potential, so if you’re a marketer operating under the assumption that ‘marketing’ is just an excuse to plan parties, you’ve been sorely mislead, and your marketing results will suffer from it.
@HubSpot Pet Peeve: People who stereotype marketers as people who plan parties and send out press releases.
— Lori Philo-Cook (@PhiloCook) May 14, 2012
2) Mystery Links: Joy’s hashtag really captures it all with this indication of subpar marketing — if you’re sharing links in social media without any context, your engagement will plummet. A link does not engaging content make; put a little #effort into the content you’re sharing if you want people to follow you, RT you, and talk to you!
@HubSpot Marketing Pet Peeve;when a link is tweeted with no description, esp. when the link is sent from an auto service!#effort
— Joy(@JoyonCapeCod) May 14, 2012
3) Mucked Up Mail Merges: While we applaud attempts at email personalization, it only works if you can execute correctly. If you’re importing lists with bad lead information, you can’t expect to deliver relevant, personal email content.
@jeannehopkins Biggest pet peeve – bad mail merges!i.e. “Dear Mrs. Polmateer”.I’m a dude.Instant delete! cc:// @Hubspot
— Garry Polmateer, CAE (@DarthGarry) May 14, 2012
4) Twitter Customer Service Fail: Marketing and customer service should work together … or at the very least, they should get an office romance going. But when you’re implementing a social customer service program, make sure those running the accounts know the ins and outs of the social media network being used so you can actually help your customers!
@hubspot Pet peeve: When companies tell you to DM them & have no clue they must follow you first. More cust serv than mkg but irksome.
— Cari Sultanik (@CariSultanik) May 14, 2012
5) Slimy Social Automation: Okay, I know many people who would dispute the effectiveness of the auto DM. Some say it’s impersonal, while others agree but still see increased follower rates. Whichever side you fall on, Dan is right that directing someone to a product page after following you on Twitter is akin to proposing on the first date. If you insist on using an auto DM, keep it congenial, not sales-oriented!
@HubSpot Auto DM replies. Especially ones directing me to a Facebook or product page. Like proposing on a first date.
— Dan Moyle (@danmoyle) May 14, 2012
6) Spammy Auto-Follows: Speaking of social media automation, don’t be the company that incessantly follows and unfollows. It’s an indication of spammy behavior that will get you blacklisted from Twitter’s search results, and really annoy your followers. I’m not sure which is worse.
@HubSpot following, unfollowing, following, unfollowing
— roberto rivera (@robertoerivera) May 14, 2012
7) Gut Decision-Making: This is my own contribution. A marketer should never insist their marketing is effective or ineffective without backing it up with data! Be sure to always measure your marketing campaigns, and analyze the data so you can make improvements.
@HubSpot When marketers say “this works” and “that doesn’t” based on feelings instead of data.
— Corey Eridon (@Corey_bos) May 15, 2012
CAN-SPAM Non-Compliance: And while I didn’t contribute this particular tweet, it’s as if Jonna read my mind (and probably that of anyone who has been on the receiving end of email SPAM). Not only is it illegal not to include the option to unsubscribe in your emails, it’s illegal not to honor the request. If there’s one area of your marketing about which you are vigilant, please, let it be this. Your Sender Score will thank you.
@HubSpot If I “unsubscribe” do not email the very next morning! Makes my blood boil.
— Jonna Robertson (@mktgoddess) May 14, 2012
9) Tricksy Email Subject Lines: Your email subject line is the gatekeeper of your email. You’d think, then, that email marketers would be more conscious of the copy they choose for their subject lines. Oh right, people who use “Re:” in their subject lines aren’t email marketers. They’re spammers.
@HubSpot Broadcast emails starting with “Re:”. Tricksy
— John Mackenzie (@johnmac71) May 14, 2012
10) Pushing, Not Pulling: What Mike points out in this tweet is the basis of inbound marketing. Stop shouting at people. Give them interesting content, and let them come to you.
@HubSpot 2 things: 1. Being shouted at. 2. Misleading info. Everything else can be chalked up to agency “creativity”.
— Mike Beauchamp (@myz06vette) May 14, 2012
11) Viral Goals: Virality is a product of amazing content, your reach, and how well you can optimize that video to spread organically. You know what it isn’t? Magic.
@HubSpot Pet peeve: Ad agencies that set out to create a “viral” video. The term “viral” implies no control over the organic spread of video
— Japheth Campbell (@yefeth) May 14, 2012
12) Nonsensical QR Codes: There’s a time and a place for everything. QR codes, for example, are excellent for connecting offline and online marketing. When someone visits your profile on Twitter, however, they are already online. If you’re going to use QR codes — or any marketing tactic, for that matter — use them where they can get the most leverage!
@HubSpot Using QR Code as Twitter profile icon. It just makes no sense.
— ideavist (@ideavist) May 14, 2012
13) The Purchased List: It doesn’t matter how fantastic your email content is if it never lands in an inbox. To ensure you have excellent email deliverability, we developed a 5-question sniff test for you to take. Hint: if you buy your email lists, you’re not going to pass the test.
@HubSpot Companies using purchased mail/email lists. #SPAM is spam whether electronic or printed. There should be an easy #OptOut for both.
— Sarah J. Hough (@sjhough) May 14, 2012
14) Interruptive Advertising: There’s a place for advertising in inbound marketing, but the key to doing it successfully is relevancy. So while the age of interruptive marketing is over, it’s not interruptive if your audience finds it relevant!
@HubSpot “You may view the page/video you are seeking after we play you a short ad about something of which you have no interest in.”
— Alex Brinsmead (@alexbrinsmead) May 14, 2012
15) Incomparable Comparisons: Sean is spot on to say that TV and internet advertising are two different beasts. Not only do they require different measurement mechanisms, but they work best when they are integrated. Don’t miss easy opportunities to incorporate, say, your social media marketing into an advertising spot.
@HubSpot when people compare TV to internet advertising.They should be used to complement not compete with each other to do the same job.
— Sean Singleton (@paulpingles) May 14, 2012
16) Customer Feedback Ignorance: If your marketing doesn’t have an end-to-end view, what we like to call closed-loop reporting, how do you know that your campaigns and messaging actually work? Use closed-loop analytics to get data on which campaigns and channels perform best, and combine that with feedback from leads and customers to improve your marketing.
@HubSpot A mega peeve: when marketing neglects to check in w prospects/current customers to validate effectiveness of programs, messaging.
— Julie Rogier (@JRogier) May 15, 2012
17) No Sense of Boundaries: Marketers must be respectful of a prospect’s preferred method of communication. If they sign up for an email newsletter, communicate via email, and don’t send them anything that’s NOT an email newsletter. If they follow you on Twitter, speak to them on Twitter. If you’d like to speak to them through another medium, get their permission to do so first!
@hubspot Huge pet peeve: signing up for a niche e-newsletter only to be bombarded by non-targeted print catalogs.. to my employer’s address
— Autumn McReynolds (@AutumnMcRey) May 14, 2012
18) Self-Proclaimed, Unwarranted ‘Experts’: If you’re hiring an agency or new employee to do your social media for you, beware of ninjas and gurus who claim to know these so called “secrets.” Like this tweet states, the “secrets” to social media are posting engaging content, having conversations, monitoring your accounts, and analyzing the ROI you get from each channel.
@HubSpot people who claim to know ‘secrets’ of success, such as in social media. There are no secrets, it’s just communication
— Creative Huddle (@Creative_Huddle) May 14, 2012
19) Intrusive Tactics: I think we’re all familiar with the commercial that’s louder than the TV show, but this problem symbolizes a larger problem with marketing people view as bad — being intrusive. If you’re providing valuable content, people will invite you into their lives; you don’t have to shove your way in.
@HubSpot another #marketing pet peeve. The noisier your TV ad is the less likely I am to watch it.
— Samantha Brackley (@SamBrackley) May 14, 2012
20) The Ungrateful Taker: Marketing is getting more and more social, which means maintaining good relationships with your network is critical. Thank those who write about you, share your content, and give you feedback. And to ensure we’re not guilty of this marketing faux pas Amber suggests, thank you all for reading, and for your submissions to this post!
Marketing pet peeve: Not acknowledging/thanking someone who promotes you! @HubSpot
— Amber Schiavi (@amsch03) May 14, 2012
What do you think is an indication that a brand’s marketing is no good? Share your pet peeves and warning signs in the comments!
Image credit: Robert S. Donovan
Interview: The Future of Cloud Marketing Software with Vocus CMO Jason Jue
At TopRank Online Marketing, we are fortunate to provide consulting to quite a few innovative B2B companies that serve other marketers. A great example of that is PRWeb and parent company, Vocus, both long standing clients. In late 2011 Vocus welcomed Jason Jue as Chief Marketing Officer. As Vocus & PRWeb’s Account Manager at TopRank, I [...]
Twitter Launches Weekly Email Digest to Aid Content Discovery
Looks like Twitter is putting its January acquisition of social news startup Summify to good use! Yesterday, the official Twitter blog announced that it will start sending users a weekly email digest featuring relevant tweets and stories shared by the people they’re connected with on Twitter. This just several days after news of Twitter’s “acqui-hire” of personalized email marketing service RestEngine.
Similar to the updated design of the Twitter Discover tab we covered earlier this month, the summary highlights which of the users you’re connected to on Twitter shared the featured stories and allows you to click through to see their tweets. It also enables you to click the headlines to read the stories themselves, and gives you the opportunity to tweet your thoughts on individual stories via the links in the email.
In addition, the digest features the most engaging tweets of the week that were seen by the people you follow, regardless of whether you follow the users who posted the tweets. Featured tweets are also accompanied by a list of users from your network who retweeted or favorited those tweets, and you can click the “View details” link in order to retweet, favorite, reply, or see the conversation about them.
Twitter indicates it will be rolling out the digest to all users over the next few weeks, and you’ll know the email when you see it. Of course, you can always opt out of receiving these emails via your Twitter Notification Settings.
Twitter’s Digest Email: A Marketer’s Take
As Twitter mentioned in its announcement of the updated Discover tab, the microblogging site is making an ongoing effort to bring users closer to the content and tweets they care about, making content discovery on Twitter even easier. And the new email digest is obviously a part of this effort.
From a marketer’s perspective, this is yet another win in marketers’ attempts to surface their best content to Twitter users. In a Twitterverse where the half-life of a link is less than 3 hours, marketers know how easy it is for their tweets to get buried under the frequently updated Twitter streams of their followers. But with discovery engines like this, marketers’ content has more opportunities to get in front of users, which means a greater chance of visibility for brands with a Twitter presence. This also makes it even more important for marketers to maintain an active Twitter presence and share their best content. In addition, marketers should make it as easy for their audience to share their content themselves by adding social media sharing links and buttons to every piece of content they publish, whether it’s a blog article, a landing page, an email message, etc.
As for the email digest itself, we think Twitter has some email optimization and conversion work to do, as well as probably some algorithm tweaking. Consider the personalized email digest my fellow HubSpot blogger, Corey Eridon shared from her inbox. See the first story in her digest?
Yup — Corey wrote that. And she subsequently tweeted this:
The algorithm behind Twitter’s digest emails needs some tweaking…the first recommended tweet was of a blog I wrote. Not SUPER helpful
— Corey Eridon (@Corey_bos) May 15, 2012
Probably not necessary for Twitter to recommend a story that Corey wrote to Corey, right? Although she was probably flattered that her article was popular enough among the users she’s connected to on Twitter to be featured in her digest. Still — flattery isn’t really the whole point here, is it? Content discovery is.
Furthermore, Twitter might want to think about better optimizing its email digests for click-throughs. Those tiny little “Tweet this story” links could be a little bit bigger, bolder, and more attractive, and did you even realize the headlines of the stories the digest features were even clickable? If it weren’t for Twitter mentioning that fact in their blog article explaining these weekly digest emails, I never would’ve picked up on that. Moreover, were you given any indication that, if you click on the thumbnails of the people pictured, you’d see their tweet about the story? I sure wasn’t, but if I clicked on them, that’s what I’d get.
Let’s hope that with Twitter’s recent acqui-hire of RestEngine, its email digest gets optimized and improved over time.
What do you think of Twitter’s new weekly digest email? How much do you think it will help users discover the marketing content you promote on Twitter?
10 Simply Awesome Examples of Email Marketing
As the Boston Globe highlighted eloquently on our behalf to announce today’s launch of HubSpot’s new email tools, email marketing is not dead! But over the years, some less than savory email marketing behaviors by brands — whether they knew better or not — have soured many recipients to the email messages filling up their inboxes.
On the other hand, it has also made consumers jump for joy when they actually do get an email that is helpful, interesting, or innovative. And that’s the kind of email marketing we like to celebrate! We’ve written about fantastic ecommerce retargeting campaigns, how to craft an email newsletter recipients actually read, and even how to use your email signature to support your other marketing efforts. But we realized we’ve never compiled a list of just plain awesome examples of email marketing that could inspire us and our readers.
So, I set out to my inbox (and that of a few friends and coworkers), and looked for the email marketing that doesn’t make me hit ‘delete.’ I hope some of these real-life examples inspire changes, additions, or innovation in the way you approach your own email marketing campaigns!
10 Examples of Awesome Email Marketing
1) ModCloth Communicates Changes to Its Email Policy … Via Email
I bookmarked this email from ModCloth several weeks ago, because I was so impressed that a brand actually cared enough to tell me it was changing certain components of its email marketing program. Take a look at the copy called out in orange below to see what I mean.
Great companies are always changing and evolving, and your customers expect it. What they don’t expect (because too many companies haven’t lived up to this end of the bargain) is to be told about those changes. What a refreshing change of pace! If you’re going to change the way you communicate with a lead or customer, give them clear, fair warning so, if they aren’t on board, they can make the necessary adjustments to keep their inbox clean.
2) UncommonGoods Creates a Sense of Urgency Without Being Pushy
You’ve heard it a million times (a few thousand of those times may have been from us) — you should create a sense of urgency with your calls-to-action! That’s what makes a lead take action, right? Sure, if it’s done right. But often, the call-to-action is positioned in a way that morphs urgency into pushiness. This email from UncommonGoods, however, succeeds in creating a sense of urgency because it focuses on the value of acting now.
Instead of saying, “Order your Mother’s Day gift NOW before Preferred Shipping ends!”, this email asks, “Don’t you think mom would’ve liked a faster delivery?” Why yes, she would. Thank you for reminding me before it’s too late, and I’m in the dog house because my gift arrived after Mother’s Day.
3) Yapta Gives the Compliment Sandwich
Look, I know what this email is really trying to say: Corey, you could be using our tool way better than you are now. But they say it so nicely! Take a look at that first sentence … they thank me and call me smart. Awesome! I’ll keep reading.
The second paragraph is when they give me some constructive feedback on better ways to use Yapta. If I follow this advice, I’ll be a better user of their service, and as such, be more likely to complete a purchase with them.
Finally, it ends with another heartwarmer — they ask for my feedback! There’s nothing better than asking for (and receiving) feedback from your users, even if they aren’t a power user. In fact, those are often the ones who can make your product or service even better, as they’ve identified roadblocks to success that many other leads and customers may be facing.
You may also notice that this email doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles. Great email marketing doesn’t need to be highly designed! This email message is effective because it gives me helpful information in a brief, clear, positive way.
4) AmazonLocal Wants to Deliver More Personalized Offers
This email from AmazonLocal is short and sweet, with just one call-to-action: click through this email to tell them what I like and dislike. That way, the deals they send me going forward can be more in line with what I’m likely to actually want. What’s wonderful about this experience is not just that they asked, but also how consistent the experience is from email to landing page. Take a look at the email below, and the landing page that follows.
Notice how the language in the email above, “like” and “dislike,” mirrors the language in the buttons below? This is a simple way to get feedback from your email recipients to provide more personalized offers in their inbox, thus increasing the chance of a high click-through and offer redemption rate.
5) ModCloth Makes Personalization Fun
AmazonLocal’s method of personalizing email content is effective, but props should be given to this oft-highlighted e-retailer ModCloth with its Style Whiz Quiz email. The end results are the same — ModCloth and AmazonLocal both know what their email recipients like, and as a result, they can better segment their email lists to provide more relevant content. But this email lets recipients take a fun survey to get the answers! If this type of interactivity appeals to your audience, it’s a great way to get the information you need to segment your email list and solidify yourself as an entertaining brand!
6) Focus Pointe Global Gets to the Point
Focus Pointe Global provides focus groups so businesses like you can get some meaty market research. This is an email I received from them to participate in one of their online surveys. I’m on a lot of mailing lists for this type of research — and this is by far the simplest email I’ve received! All of the information I need to know to determine whether I want to participate is called out in bold, with extremely short explanatory copy following it. What is the survey about? What do I get for taking it? How long will it take? Where can I begin? All emails should provide such clear instruction!
7) Zipcar Brings Back an Abandoned User
This example comes courtesy of my coworker who started signing up for Zipcar, got busy, and had to abandon the form. Take a quick browse of the copy!
The email calls her back to the website with some lighthearted copy that nudges her in the right direction, and also reminds her of the value of using Zipcar — being economical and helping the planet. If your site visitors are abandoning shopping carts or landing pages, use your email marketing in this way to remind them they have some unfinished business on your website!
ModCloth Promotes Its Referral Program
Do you have a referral program? Cool! Do your customers know about it? I didn’t know ModCloth had one … until I saw this email. Good thing, eh? This email is great because it recognizes that even engaged customers — you know, the ones that are likely to refer customers — might not know you offer referral benefits. Email marketing is ideal for ongoing communication with engaged leads and prospects; never forget about keeping them in the know!
9) UncommonGoods Lets Customers Sell for Them
Another repeat offender (in the nicest way!) on this list, UncommonGoods leverages the power of social proof to beef up its Mother’s Day email marketing campaign. Not only does this email provide recommendations for those struggling to come up with a gift, but it also highlights what other customers have to say about them. And in case you forgot, user-generated content is wicked important — so important, in fact, that 8 in 10 people’s purchasing decisions are influenced by user-generated content of complete strangers.
10) Zizinya Web Solutions Reminds You Who They Are
HubSpot customer Zizinya Web Solutions uses this email in one of its lead nurturing email series, and it’s one of my favorite examples of a principle so many email marketers forget. Your inbox recipients don’t always remember who you are! Take a look at the callout in orange — the first paragraph of this email tells the reader why they are being contacted. With the amount of inbox overload we all suffer, reminders of this nature are critical to preventing deletions and unsubscribes. Once your relationship with readers has been re-established, you’re more likely to enjoy high click-through rates on your email’s call-to-action.
There are hundreds of other examples of excellent email marketing. Share some of your favorite campaigns in the comments!
Image credit: moonlightbulb
