Beyond Batch and Blast: Launching Your First Lead Nurturing Program
It’s long been said that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This is no truer than in the marketing space, where every lead wooed and converted translates into increased revenue. However, there’s a commonly used method that exists which proves as the exception to this rule, which we not-so-affectionately refer to as “batch and blast.” […]
Every Page is a Potential Landing Page: 6 Tips to Optimize for the New Reality
Imagine discovering that your carefully crafted, well-written homepage wasn’t being visited. At least not as much as it used to be. Would it upset you? Be a red flag? A harbinger of business decline? Hopefully your answer is “no” – or at least “not necessarily” – to all of the above. Because across the (cyber)board, […]
An Act-On Conversation: Charles Besondy and Leo Merle on How Marketing Can Contribute to Revenue
In a recent Act-On Conversation, Charles Besondy and Leo Merle chatted about the steps a company can take to make marketing more accountable and a more forceful contributor to the success of the sales team. Our Conversationalists: Charles Besondy is the president of Besondy Consulting and Interim Management, and also a certified Funnel Coach for […]
Act-On Announces $42 Million in Venture Financing, Led by Technology Crossover Ventures
I’m very pleased to announce today that Act-On has secured $42 million in new venture financing. Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) led the round, with existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures, US Venture Partners, and Voyager Capital also participating. Palo Alto-based TCV is one of the largest providers of growth capital to premier technology companies, […]
5 Ways of Ensuring Real ROI in Social Media
Only a year or so ago marketers were arguing about whether social media was a distracting time-suck or a valuable activity. That argument has been won by those who use social as a tool for engagement and brand awareness: a 2013 Aberdeen Group study, for instance, found that 70% of leading companies generate highly valuable […]
7 SEO Myths Marketers Should Know
“Myths are a waste of time. They prevent progression” – Barbra Streisand Understanding the world of search engine optimization is hard enough, but compound that with the bad advice, myths, and misunderstandings out there and – it’s enough to make you go mad. I never thought I’d be quoting the almighty Barbra in an online […]
5 Tips for Maximizing Your Marketing with Google AdWords
The answer to your question is “probably yes … and definitely probably.” The question: “Should my company use Google AdWords?” As the interweb’s dominant pay-per-click platform, AdWords is Google’s pretty baby: It’s self-absorbed, incredibly time-consuming, demands constant attention, and costs money … yet most still say it’s worth it. And for many companies, AdWords definitely […]
How (and Why) to Use Social Media Meta Tags (Part 2 of 2)
This post is the second in a series that looks at social media meta tags and the ways they can power up your social content. In Part 1 we looked at tags that work with Facebook and Twitter (OpenGraph and Twitter Cards); in this post, we’ll examine the tags for Pinterest and Google+. As a […]
How (and Why) to Use Social Media Meta Tags (Part 1 of 2)
Everybody knows you need to use metadata to optimize your web pages, right? Well…raise your hand if you’re using it to optimize your social media. As a baseline: “Metadata” (literally, data about data) is plural for all the bits of information that get coded into something, to define what it is and what it contains. […]
7 Tips for Brand Consistency Across Social Channels
Imagine that you’re relaxing in a movie theatre watching an old classic western movie. On the screen, the hero gallops into the frame. You know he’s the hero immediately – by his branding. He’s riding a beautiful horse, the music is swelling, and he’s wearing a white hat. If he’s typecast, you might see this same […]
Keep Calm and Learn How to Nurture Leads
OR: 9 Simple Ideas for Integrating a Variety of Marketing Tactics in a Lead Nurturing Program There’s a radio ad running in the Northern California/San Francisco Bay area for a digital marketing agency. The announcer lists off dozens of marketing activities with ever-increasing speed and a tone that suggests a frustrated, bewildered marketer. How on […]
What a Google Algorithm Update Can Mean For Your Site
If you were online in the early days, when the Internet became mainstream, you probably remember how hard it was to find information on the web. Sure, there were search engines like Altavista and sites like AOL to help you out, or you could create extensive bookmark lists of the sites you frequented, but it […]
Cybersecurity Help for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses
It’s barely two months into 2014, and we’ve seen a tremendous number of issues pertaining to privacy and data breach management. At an Online Trust Alliance (OTA) meeting I recently attended, the comment was made that “It’s not a case of if you will be affected by a breach, it’s a case of when.” This […]
Does Social Media Influence Search Rankings?
Did your formal education prepare you for what you actually do in the day-to-day? Mine did to an extent, but when you’re working at the edge of an ever-expanding discipline, as digital marketers do, you tend to learn the most on the job. It was in the course of my own daily tasks that I […]
An Act-On Conversation: Jay Hidalgo and Atri Chatterjee Talk Demand Generation, Part 1
Recently I had the opportunity to moderate an Act-On Conversation on demand generation. The Conversationalists, Jay Hidalgo and Atri Chatterjee, defined demand generation and talked about how personas, sales and marketing alignment, and content marketing are a trifecta for successful demand generation. [powerpress] What follows below is Part 1 of the transcript of the Conversation. […]
On the Road to Marketing Accountability: Five KPIs You Should Start Tracking Today
Marketing departments take pride in coming up with clever campaign ideas, exciting images, and compelling messages – and rightly so. However, these matter little to the executive team if the following concern is not addressed: Are our marketing investments bringing enough return? The first step in addressing this concern, and therefore building up marketing’s credibility, […]
6 Social Media Marketing Myths to Avoid
Despite its relative youth, social media marketing has proven itself to be a valuable addition to the marketing mix. As reliance on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms continues to grow, business owners and marketing managers must educate themselves on the myths and realities of social media marketing. By recognizing the following six myths, […]
An Act-On Conversation: Anneke Seley and Shawn Naggiar Talk Inside Sales
Editor’s note: Anneke Seley is the CEO and founder of Reality Works Group, and co-author of the book “Sales 2.0 Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology.” She is also the founder of OracleDirect, Oracle’s global inside sales organization, now a multi-billion dollar, world-wide operation. Thursday February 6th, Anneke will moderate an interactive […]
B2C Marketers: 4 Reasons Why Webinars Are Worth the Investment
Webinars have long been a top-ranking tactic among B2B marketers and for good reason: They work. More often than not, webinars deliver measurable upside across the entire customer journey by incrementally building and strengthening brand awareness, trust, preference, and loyalty among prospects and customers. But it’s a different story in the B2C world where anecdotes, casual conversations, and bona […]