Only 3 percent of your ideal customers are actively searching for your product, or are in an active buying mode, according to the author of the Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes. (Note: you should get this book on audible and listen to it now!)
For both large and small business, this means that you need to constantly come up with new and creative ways to sell your company’s offerings and try to weed out the other 97%.
Naturally, this can get quite expensive, because “everybody” wants them, and so SEO, PPC prices go up, and hungry marketers will do anything (even use stupid, shady tactics) to get attention and grab marketshare.
Education-based marketing is a growing solution that is seeing brands provide more information and knowledge surrounding their products and services.
The aim is to sell the solution without explicitly selling it. It will more naturally repel the people not interested, and draw your warmer audience in.
Not convinced?
Here are three reasons why education-based marketing is becoming more effective as a sales strategy.
1. You don’t come across as sales-aggressive
It’s a common trait to get frustrated with salesmen they can come off as pestering, money-hungry people with dishonest motives.
And once that reputation is established, it can be hard to shake.
However, with education-based selling, the sales strategy is so well disguised under the wealth of knowledge you’re providing, customers often come to a purchasing decision on their own, without feeling bothered by sales tactics.
Apple Rubber, for example, provides consumers with information on o-rings, including content about their function and what makes them so useful.
Without any aggressive advertising or promotions, the o-rings ultimately sell themselves by showing the consumer why they need them (and they do it in a fun, interesting and useful way!)
2. You establish yourself as an authority figure
Rather than providing your customer base with blanket statements about how great your product is and then asking them to trust you, you should establish yourself as an expert first.
By educating your potential and loyal consumers, you are communicating that you have a lot of knowledge about the industry and know what you’re talking about.
From there, when you tell them that your product is worthwhile, it holds more weight in the consumers’ eyes and selling becomes that much easier.
Not only will audiences begin to trust your word, but they’ll learn to rely on your expert opinion, creating a much deeper relationship with your customers and making the sales process long-term and efficient.
3. You’ll build your brand personality and provide extra value
These days, with social media marketing becoming such a major facet of any business strategy, consumers are looking for something more from brands over and above what they sell they’re looking for a personality they can relate to.
Education-based marketing is another addition to the strategy of displaying a brand personality, as it gives your company a voice, an opinion and an excuse to communicate with your customers.
…the education you provide to your audience is a value-add that can set you apart from your competitors.
Ultimately, in your consumers’ eyes, you’re not only the brand that sells that one product, you’re a unique and engaging entity that contributes to the conversation.
Education-based marketing is an effective method that draws customers in for the long-term.
By eliminating the negative connotations around selling, education-based marketing provides your audience with something extra and allows your products to sell themselves.
Retargeting with Google Ads can be the breakthrough your ads and traffic has been waiting for.
Ready to turn website visitors into loyal customers and maximize your ROI with B2B retargeting?
Buckle up … because we’re about to dive into the 7 must-do’s for an effective retargeting strategy:
1. Segment Your Audience Strategically:
Top Funnel: Visitors who engaged with awareness-stage content (blog posts, infographics, etc.) need nurturing reminders, not sales pitches.
Target them with educational content or case studies to build trust and brand awareness.
Middle Funnel: Users who downloaded white papers, requested demos, or interacted with product pages are further down the funnel.
Retarget them with targeted product demos, success stories, or personalized pricing quotes.
Bottom Funnel: Visitors who abandoned carts or reached checkout are primed for conversion.
Hit them with limited-time discounts, free consultations, or urgency-driven CTAs like “Claim Your Last Spot!” or “Ticket are going fast, register now!”
2. Don’t Be Creepy, Be Creepy Good:
Frequency Capping: Avoid bombarding users with endless ads. Set frequency caps to manage impressions and prevent ad fatigue.
Dynamic Creative Optimization: Show relevant ad variations based on individual user behavior and interests.
Dynamic product ads or personalized testimonials work wonders.
Recency Triggering: Prioritize retargeting users who interacted with your site recently.
The closer they are to conversion, the higher the impact.
3. Go Beyond Website Retargeting:
Customer Match Lists: Upload email addresses of existing customers or leads to target them across Google’s Display Network and YouTube. YouTube ads have terrific targeting options as well.
Remarketing across platforms keeps your brand top-of-mind.
Similar Audiences(retired August ’23): Expand your reach by targeting users similar to your existing high-value customers or website visitors. Tap into hidden potential with Google’s powerful algorithms.
4. Embrace Automation, but Don’t Forget the Human Touch:
Smart Bidding Strategies: Utilize Target CPA or Target ROAS bidding to optimize bids for conversions and maximize ROI.
Let Google’s AI do the heavy lifting while you focus on strategy.
Negative Keywords: Exclude irrelevant searches and landing pages to avoid wasting ad spend on non-qualified clicks.
Remember, precision is key in B2B advertising.
Landing Page Optimization: Ensure your landing pages seamlessly match your ad messaging and offer a clear path to conversion.
Don’t let a misaligned landing page kill your momentum.
5. A/B Test & Analyze Like a Data Ninja:
Headline Variations: Experiment with different headlines to see what grabs your audience’s attention and sparks curiosity. Test for best performance!
Visuals & CTAs: Play with ad formats, images, and call-to-action buttons. Find the visual and messaging combination that converts like a charm.
Performance Insights: Regularly analyze your retargeting campaign data.
Track conversion rates, cost per lead, and other key metrics to identify areas for improvement and optimize your campaigns for ongoing success.
Side note: Automating this process with Performance Max campaigns can work even better – once your assets and funnels have been proven to work with a positive return.
6. Don’t Forget the Retargeting Funnel Exit Strategy:
Win-Back Campaigns: Re-engage users who haven’t interacted with your ads in a while with special offers or exclusive content.
Sometimes, all it takes is a little reminder to rekindle their interest.
Exclusion Lists: Once users convert or become irrelevant, add them to exclusion lists to avoid wasting ad spend on them.
Keep your targeting laser-focused and efficient.
7. Measure ROI Beyond Last Click:
Track Assisted Conversions: Google Ads often plays a supporting role in B2B conversion journeys.
Use attribution models like “last-click + assist” to accurately measure the true impact of your retargeting campaigns. We normally use the “data driven” attribution, but this is not always static as you’ve seen.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): Look beyond immediate conversions. Consider the long-term value of acquired customers and optimize your retargeting strategy to attract high-value prospects.
CONCLUSION:
By mastering these 7 secrets to remarketing, you’ll unlock the power of B2B retargeting in Google Ads and transform your website visitors into loyal customers, all while maximizing your return on ad spend.
Remember, it’s not just about clicks, it’s about building relationships and driving sustainable growth for your B2B business. Measure your investment against returns and optimize accordingly.
In the fast-paced and ever-evolving world of digital advertising and marketing, choosing the right agency to handle your paid media and sales growth from is essential.
Nothing is more important for a CMO and COO in finding the right partner that understands them and their business.
And, navigating the digital advertising landscape requires more than just following the beaten path. It demands a bold, innovative approach that challenges the status quo.
(So…what follows is a blatant, self-promotional post about why we’re different and how we approach digital marketing and advertising)
Why We Stand Out:
Embracing (Positive Results) Controversy: We are not afraid to push boundaries and challenge conventional wisdom. Our strategies may raise eyebrows, but they also raise profits. We believe in testing the limits of what’s possible to discover new avenues for growth.
Leveraging the Unpopular: While most agencies chase the latest trends, we find value in the overlooked and underrated. By leveraging existing popular platforms, we also look at tapping into less crowded advertising channels and by exploring unconventional targeting options, we ensure your message stands out.
Data-Driven Provocation: Our approach is rooted in data, but we use it to provoke thought and inspire action. We analyze patterns and trends that others may ignore, uncovering unique insights that drive innovative strategies.
ROI Through ‘Risk-Taking’: We understand that risk and reward go hand in hand. Our calculated risk-taking in building strategies for media buying has a track record of delivering impressive returns, proving that a little courage goes a long way.
Transparent Disruption: We maintain open communication with our clients, even when our strategies are unconventional. You will always be in the loop, understanding the ‘why’ behind our bold moves.
Personalized Provocation: We tailor our disruptive strategies to align with your unique goals and vision. Our approach is as unique as your business, ensuring that we are a catalyst for transformation and growth.
Our media buying process and strategies are built around these core principles – to deliver high performing campaigns and results:
Deep-Dive Market Dissection: We go beyond surface-level analysis, diving deep into your market to uncover unconventional insights that inform our strategies. We work with your team and our own Creative Briefs (CB) to uncover a complete picture of your market and business.
Bold Strategic Planning: Armed with insights, we develop a media buying plan that is as bold as it is strategic, outlining unconventional channels and tactics to achieve your goals. We leverage our “Profitability Matrix” and simple math to understand the media buying metric landscape. We can create winning campaigns before even starting, by telling you what will work, and what will not.
Creative That Captivates and Challenges: Our ad creatives are designed to captivate your audience, but also to challenge them, sparking curiosity and engagement. We build creatives for each stage of the funnel – from TOP, MIDDLE and BOTTOM.
Targeting the Untargeted: We explore untapped targeting options, reaching your audience in ways and places that others might not dare to try. We leverage our OMNI-CHANNEL frameworks, as described below.
Relentless Optimization for the Extraordinary: Our optimization goes beyond the usual metrics, striving for extraordinary results that set new standards. We do this by watching metrics daily and optimizing when KPI goals are met.
Transparent Reporting on the Bold and the Brave: We provide detailed reporting that not only highlights our successes but also sheds light on our bold strategies, ensuring you understand the impact of our unconventional approach. We have a fully transparent approach and open communication, so nothing is misunderstood or left out.
Scaling the Successes That Others Might Miss: As we identify successful strategies, we scale them, not just for growth, but for transformative results that redefine what’s possible. This also means looking at data beyond just ROAS.
Our Process For Omni-Channel Marketing:
Omni-channel marketing is about creating a seamless and consistent customer experience across all channels and touchpoints. It’s about understanding that the customer’s journey is no longer linear, and ensuring that we are present, persuasive, and personalized at every stage of their journey.
The complexity of the customer journey can be seen directly from Google. No more “7-touch points” to determine customer engagement and sales success. (Taken from the The Rule Of Seven in marketing. It states that brands that engage with a customer seven times are more likely to earn the trust and business of that customer).
Our Approach to Omni-Channel Marketing for Sales Growth
Customer Journey Mapping: We start by meticulously mapping out the customer journey, identifying all potential touchpoints across various channels. This helps us understand the path that customers take from awareness to conversion, and beyond.
Data Integration and Analysis: We integrate data from all channels to have a unified view of the customer. This data-driven approach allows us to analyze customer behavior, preferences, and interactions, enabling us to make informed decisions. Placing scripts and code on website assets is one piece of the framework we use.
Channel-Specific Strategies: While our approach is integrated, we understand that each channel has its unique strengths. We develop channel-specific strategies that play to these strengths, ensuring that we are maximizing the potential of each channel.
Personalization: Using the data we have gathered and analyzed, we personalize our messaging and content to resonate with the customer at a personal level. This personalization extends across all channels, ensuring a consistent and relevant experience. Segmentation and message to market match is essential for today’s complex digital marketplaces.
Seamless Integration: We ensure that all channels are seamlessly integrated, providing a cohesive and consistent experience for the customer. Whether they are interacting with us on social media, via email, or in-store, the message and experience remain consistent. Our story-based, brand focused messaging reaches beyond the ‘standard and ordinary’.
Continuous Optimization: Our work doesn’t stop at implementation. We continuously monitor the performance of our campaigns across all channels, using data to optimize in real-time. This ensures that we are always improving and always delivering the best possible results.
Measurement and Reporting: We believe in transparency and accountability. We provide comprehensive reporting that details the performance of our omni-channel campaigns, showcasing the impact on sales growth and ROI. The data does not lie.
Scalability for Growth: As we identify winning strategies and tactics, we scale our efforts to maximize impact. Our approach is designed to grow with you, ensuring that we are always driving sales and contributing to your brand’s success.
Our approach to media buying, digital consulting, sales growth and omni-channel marketing is holistic, data-driven, and customer-centric.
We understand the complexities of today’s customer journey, and we have the expertise, tools, and strategies to navigate it successfully. We began this journey in the summer of 2007.
Our commitment to driving sales growth through integrated, personalized, and optimized marketing makes us the ideal partner for your brand. Our team is highly responsive, professional and communicate on a scheduled basis, so you’ll never have to ask “where do we stand?”
Couple the above with our unconventional, bold approach – and we consistently deliver results that matter. And, we are ready to bring this level of innovation and success to your company.
As any VP of Marketing for a B2B product and service business, generating Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) is paramount for sustainable growth.
Google Ads is a potent platform that offers various channels to achieve this.
We’ll also discuss how to use Google search ads to leverage Ad Scent Consistency to get the highest quality leads and best opportunities for sales close ratios.
When generating highly qualified leads from Google, you can leverage many aspects of their ad ecosystem. There are several types (search, video, display) that you can use.
However, there are only 3 areas that you must focus on for ongoing consistency.
Let’s delve into detailed insights for each type you must consider:
1. Search (Text) Ads:
High-Intent Keyword Targeting:
Focus on targeting keywords that demonstrate purchase intent. For instance, instead of targeting “CRM systems”, opt for “best CRM for small businesses” or “CRM system pricing”.
These long-tail keywords are specific and often indicate that the searcher is closer to making a buying decision.
Use Ad Extensions:
Employ site link extensions, callout extensions, and structured snippet extensions to showcase unique selling points, offers, and key features.
This not only improves visibility but also provides more reasons for a searcher to click. The Google algo favors “completeness” in your ad structures.
Landing Page Optimization:
Ensure that the landing page is relevant to the ad copy and the targeted keywords. A consistent message between the ad copy and the landing page increases conversion rates.
The page should load quickly, be mobile-friendly, and the lead capture form should be simple and intuitive.
2. YouTube Ads (videos from your channel or others):
Leverage Video Sequencing:
Start with a broad, awareness-focused video to introduce the pain points your service solves.
Follow this with more detailed videos and targeting that delve into the solution, culminating in a direct CTA. This sequence can nurture potential SQLs down the funnel.
Targeting and Retargeting:
Begin with a broad audience but use YouTube’s powerful targeting options to refine this over time. Note/important: we use an internal creative brief to establish the exact audiences to use. This provides even better targeting, messaging and conversion options. Don’t just leverage broad.
Utilize retargeting to show your ads to users who’ve interacted with your brand but haven’t converted.
Clear and Strong CTAs:
Your video content should always end with a compelling call-to-action (CTA). This might be to schedule a demo, sign up for a free trial, or simply learn more.
Make the next steps clear and easy.
3. Your Branded Ads:
Defend Your Brand:
Competitors can bid on your brand name. By running branded ads, you ensure that when potential clients search for your business, your ads appear at the top, defending against competitors trying to poach your potential leads.
Do not miss this opportunity for strong lead generation and brand positioning!
Leverage Customer Testimonials and Reviews:
Branded searches indicate that the searcher is already aware of your brand.
Use this opportunity to reinforce trust by showcasing customer testimonials, awards, and recognitions in your ad copy.
>> HOW TO GENERATE HIGH CONVERTING SEARCH ADS <<
The art of creating high-converting search text ads goes beyond the basic principles.
While many marketers know the foundational techniques, there are subtle nuances that can make a significant difference in click-through and conversion rates.
Here are some advanced insights and things you must be clear on:
Deep Understanding of the Target Audience:
Craft your message to resonate with the searcher’s specific pain points, desires, or needs. This means understanding not just what they’re searching for, but why.
Are they looking for cost-efficiency, quality, reliability, or fast service? Adjust your ad’s messaging to emphasize the particular value they seek.
Utilize Emotional Triggers:
While B2B marketing is often seen as logical and data-driven, it’s essential to remember that business decisions are made by humans driven by emotions.
Use emotional triggers like urgency (“Limited Offer”), exclusivity (“Be the first to…”), or safety (“Trusted by 1,000+ companies”).
Ad Scent and Consistency:
This refers to maintaining a consistent “scent” between the ad copy and its corresponding landing page. If your ad promises a discount, the landing page should immediately reflect that.
If there’s a mismatch, visitors will bounce, wasting your PPC spend.
Use Numbers and Symbols:
Ads that include numbers (e.g., “Save 25%”, “1000+ Satisfied Clients”) or symbols (e.g., &, $, %) tend to stand out more and have higher CTRs.
They break the monotony of text and provide clear, tangible benefits or offers.
Test Different Calls-to-Action (CTAs):
A compelling CTA can drastically affect conversions. Don’t just settle for “Learn More” or “Buy Now”.
Test variations that might resonate more with your audience, like “Discover”, “Get Started”, or “See the Difference”.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion:
This feature allows the ad to automatically adjust the text to include the exact keyword phrase the user searched for, making the ad seem incredibly relevant.
However, use it judiciously to avoid awkwardly phrased ads. You needs to monitor and test this carefully.
Utilize All Available Ad Space:
Max out your character limits where it makes sense. Longer, well-crafted ads give you more space to convince a searcher to click on your ad over others.
This doesn’t mean to be verbose, but rather, utilize the space effectively to convey your value proposition.
Display URLs Are Also Ad Copy:
While the Display URL in Google Ads doesn’t need to link to an actual page (since the Final URL is the actual landing page), it should be treated as part of your ad message.
Use it to reinforce your offer, brand, or value proposition, like “example.com/free-call”.
Pre-Qualify Clicks:
If your service is high-end or niche-specific, mention that in the ad. It might reduce the number of clicks, but the ones you do get will be from an audience more likely to convert.
For instance, “Premium CRM for Large Enterprises” ensures that small businesses won’t waste your ad budget.
Continuous A/B Testing:
Digital advertising is dynamic. Regularly test different headlines, descriptions, and CTAs to see what resonates the most with your target audience.
Over time, these incremental improvements can lead to significantly better performance.
Crafting a high-converting search text ad is a blend of art and science. And, it starts with understanding your audience, and how your messaging is positioned in ads, landers and scripts (sales team) and have a clear offer structure and next steps process.
So, it requires understanding the audience’s psychology, iterating based on data, and staying updated with platform-specific nuances and best practices.
In conclusion, while each channel within Google Ads serves a distinct purpose, they should be utilized cohesively in a well-structured marketing strategy.
Continuous testing, refinement, and optimization, backed by a deep understanding of the target audience, will be crucial in driving SQLs for a B2B service business.
Unlike direct marketing, which relies on coupons and commercial spots, indirect marketing is brilliantly positioned to leverage inexpensive and effective online communication channels.
There can be some pitfalls to near constant communication with customers and potential customers.
But when done right, indirect marketing can create long-lasting relationships that keep revenue coming long after any coupon sale could.
1. Moody’s Analytics
Rapper the Weeknd (Twitter) said that “being forgotten is man’s greatest fear and staying relevant is a handicap for most”.
Unfortunately, relevance is also a necessity for any business.
The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals.
In this context, value is not necessarily monetary.
Moody’s, the preeminent service and research company for investor financials, is making itself valuable to consumers by offering finance courses online.
“Moody’s Analytics is a subsidiary of Moody’s Corporation established in 2007 to focus on non-rating activities, separate from Moody’s Investors Service. It provides economic research regarding risk, performance and financial modeling, as well as consulting, training and software services.”
This is indirect marketing at its best.
Without ever saying the words, Moody’s reminds the consumer that it is the most knowledgeable in its field. This is how you build total authority.
2. Scholastic
One defining characteristic of indirect marketing is that it is omnidirectional. There is participation from the consumer that goes beyond printing a coupon.
Scholastic Home Page – Reading Club
A staple in children’s book publishing, Scholastic Books is using the social network site Pinterest very well in its indirect marketing approach.
“Scholastic Corporation is an American publishing, education and media company known for publishing, selling, and distributing books and educational materials for schools, teachers, parents, and children. Products are distributed to schools and districts, to consumers through the schools via reading clubs and fairs, and through retail stores and online sales.” – Wikipedia
Its Pinterest boards include fun, interactive topics, such as Book Bling and Hosting a Book Bash.
Not only does the Pinterest board keep Scholastic relevant as a book publisher, it lets the users place their ideas, which creates a type of dialogue between the company, consumers and potential customers.
3. Listerine
The mouthwash company’s campaign is a mix of great indirect marketing and a cautionary tale.
“Listerine is a brand of antiseptic mouthwash product. It is promoted with the slogan “Kills germs that cause bad breath”. Named after Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, Listerine was actually developed in 1879 by Joseph Lawrence, a chemist in St. Louis, Missouri.” – Wikipedia
Before 2005, Listerine mouthwash ads made the claim that it could replace flossing as an effective way of preventing tooth decay.
In one massive indirect marketing swoop, Listerine convinced consumers that its mouthwash was as good as flossing.
Like all great indirect marketing, the campaign took on a life of its own and made the Listerine brand name synonymous with all mouth wash.
The Listerine lawsuit in 2004 deemed the ads as misleading, forcing the company to stop running them, but the campaign had already done its job.
A class action civil suit was ultimately thrown out in 2010 because the judge found the claim overly broad since most people had not seen the relatively short-run ads.
4. Toms
Social responsibility is another of the indirect marketing features.
Toms shoes – social responsibility company – One For One
Toms Shoe Company (Twitter) used this to gain great leverage as well as do some good for children in need.
“The company was founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, an entrepreneur from Arlington, Texas. It designs and sells shoes based on the Argentine alpargata design as well as eyewear. When Toms sells a pair of shoes, a new pair of shoes is given to an impoverished child, and when Toms sells a pair of eyewear, part of the profit is used to save or restore the eyesight for people in developing countries.” – Wikipedia
As an indirect marketing method, philanthropy is a great way to get brand recognition, positive perception and increased loyalty without spending a cent on advertorial marketing.
5. The Hustle
Coupons are not fun. The engagement associated with indirect marketing is fun.
Improving the customer experience is simple with automated customer relationship management tools.
When applied correctly, these automated tools can single handedly improve the customer experience, all while boosting your business’ bottom line.
Here’s how.
Why Automated CRM Matters
How do you manage your customer relationships? Gone are the days when business owners turn to unmanageable spreadsheets.
Modern business leaders are increasingly implementing automated customer relationship management tools to better manage their contacts.
Automated customer relationship management comes in many forms, from personalized emails to targeted customer recommendations on a website based-on past purchases or interests.
Today’s CRM tools offer scalable personalization, no longer leaving personalization for a few “best” customers, but to all customers. CRM also leads to higher customer retention rates, which is key.
Returning customers will spend 31 percent more than a new customer, and retained customers are 60 to 70 percent more likely to buy from a business that they already have a relationship with than a customer who’s never done business with you.
CRM can also give you freedom, freeing up time from tedious tasks like data entry and customer information recording.
Essential Webmaster Tools
Customer relationships are the driving force of your company.
An automated and cloud-based customer relationship management tool, such as Infor CRM, can help you maximize the impact of every single customer interaction through industry specific capabilities, flexibility and scale and deep integration.
Infor CRM gives business leaders and their teams a seamless, easy-to-use platform that can be accessed across all teams, helping your company to work smarter, not harder, with a functional user experience.
Make use of Infor consulting services, articles and video tutorials on Infor CRM to ensure that your team is up to speed.
Helpful Automated Messaging
Customers come to your website to learn more about your goods or services. Your website is essentially an online version of a storefront for your business.
Here customers can get a glimpse of what you stand for, learn about your company and browse a selection of your offerings.
But who can they turn to when they have a question?
Think about the last time that you were in a department store.
You were probably looking around, getting to know the company, and then you had a question. You likely found a store clerk to talk to.
Like a store clerk, automated messaging services such as LiveChat can give your customers the chance to get answers to their questions without sending an email or dialing up your company by phone.
Real-time answers can inspire purchases and keep your existing customers returning, and impress your first time clients.
In fact, according to LiveChat data, visitors invited to chat are 6.3 times more likely to convert into customers than those who don’t chat.
Modern Customer Self-Service
Today’s customers are more connected than ever before and these digitally savvy customers often act on their own timeframe and terms. Make sure that you offer what these connected customers need with a self-service portal on your company’s website.
The Salesforce Self-Service portal allows you to design and build mobile-friendly, and branded, portals that can enhance the customer experience. Best of all, the low-code option is easy to use and deploy.
Your customer relationships and your bottom line are related.
With mobile devices now accounting for 51 percent of American adult Internet usage, it’s not surprising that web design has followed the Internet’s move to the cloud.
A signal of the sea change came in 2013 when Adobe dropped its traditional desktop-oriented Creative Suite in favor of its Creative Cloud line.
This was a move that initially outraged veteran Adobe desktop users but which ultimately tripled Adobe’s recurring revenue and stock value, McKinsey & Company reports.
Today web design is mobile oriented, and designers typically work on their mobile devices from the cloud. Here are 10 cloud-based apps that web designers find handy.
1. Mozy
Backing up your website is vital for disaster planning to make sure you don’t lose all your hard work and your online business doesn’t go down. Mozy provides automatic cloud-based backups that you can set and forget.
Mozy’s cloud backup feature comes with MozyPro with pricing starting at $109.89 a year for 10 GB or with MozyHome starting at $5.99 a month for 50 GB. An enterprise version is also available.
2. Adobe Animate CC
Adobe Animate CC is the current successor to Flash, the longtime web animation standard which Adobe is now phasing out due to security issues, software changes and battery life limitations, Fortune reports.
Adobe Animate CC features include animation creation, the ability to convert old Flash ads to HTML5 Canvas, vector art brushes that let you modify and rescale drawings without losing quality and export tools for exporting video to 4K resolution.
You can get Adobe Animate CC as part of a Creative Cloud Single App plan for $19.99 a month, as part of the entire Creative Cloud apps suite for $49.99 a month or with Adobe Stock plus Creative Cloud for $69.98 a month.
3. Affinity Photo
Serif’s Affinity Photo is emerging as a cloud-oriented rival to Adobe Photoshop. Designed for Macs and named by Apple as the best Mac App of 2015, Affinity Photo provides a dedicated RAW editing workspace compatible with all major camera file formats and supports Photoshop files.
Among other advanced features, Affinity Photo’s layering method lets you adjust images and vectors without disrupting them, while providing instant previews so you can edit in real time. Affinity Photo is currently available for $49.99 with no subscription needed.
4. Codeanywhere
For designers who want to be able to work from any location, Codeanywhere provides a cloud cross-platform integrated development environment that supports development from anywhere using a web browser and mobile device.
Written entirely in JavaScript, Codeanywhere runs entirely in-browser, includes an FTP client and Dropbox integration, features a sandbox with MySQL support and supports over 75 programming languages. Pricing ranges from a freemium version to a business version for $40 per month.
5. Sass
CSS can get hard to handle when you have to juggle multiple style sheets to manage thousands of lines of code.
To deal with this issue, smart web designers rely on CSS pre-processors, the best known of which is Sass (Synthetically Awesome StyleSheet). Sass helps you create code that’s easy to maintain by letting you write CSS in the style of programming languages with variables and functions, for compiling into browser-ready CSS format.
An open-source program, Sass is free to install.
6. CodeKit
Like multiple CSS sheets, projects with multiple HTML pages can get cumbersome when you have to change one element across multiple pages.
To make editing easier, the CodeKit template engine adds variable and file import ability to HTML to let you make changes to multiple pages from a single template instead of editing pages individually.
CodeKit pricing options currently range from $32 to $39.
7. GridFox
Getting your layouts to display properly across a wide range of strings can be tedious. GridFox makes design layout easier by superimposing a reference grid over any webpage so can check your grid-based designs.
You can also modify grids and save them to the cloud for future use.
A Firefox add-on, GridFox is free.
8. Balsamiq Mockups
Wireframing simplifies web design by visually stripping sites down to their essential functional and user interactive elements.
Balsamiq Mockups lets you do wireframing from the cloud by providing hand-drawn style elements you can drag and drop to preview your site.
Pricing for the cloud-based version of Balsamiq Mockups ranges from three active projects for $12 per month or 100 active projects for $199 per month.
9. Grunt
Web design tasks such as minification and compilation are repetitive.
Task runner program Grunt automates repetitive tasks by letting you install JavaScript plug-ins or by writing your own task scripts.
An open source program, Grunt is free.
10. Dropbox
Storing and sharing files is an essential part of collaborative web design.
Dropbox makes it easy to share files of any size between your devices or with other users by using simple drag-and-drop features.
Dropbox is free for 2 GB of storage space and costs $9.99 per month for 1 TB.
The ability to evolve and the agility to pivot in response to trends are crucibles upon which marketers’ work is often judged by consumers and organizations alike. One area in which this is especially apparent is content marketing. As surely as digital content marketing has become elemental, so too has the Web’s indiscriminate urge to disrupt it. – dmnews.com
How many times have you taken some sort of assessment or quiz online for fun?
Or, maybe you took an assessment or tried a useful calculator from a known, online brand?
The bottom line is that unless you have been living underneath a rock, you have heard or seen a number of different quizzes on a wide variety of subjects online.
The interactive content sweetspot focus areas (From convinceandconvert.com)
These quizzes are actually everywhere, so it is normal that you will see them going across your news-feed and taking over a big part of your social media experience.
They are becoming more and more popular in use for B2B marketing professionals as well.
“People aren’t satisfied with one-way communication anymore; they want to participate in a conversation. This is where interactive content comes into play. Instead of creating long, static documents, consider creating ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ style assets” – Peter Arvai, CEO of presentation software company Prezi
“The shift from the traditional “click->landingpage->emailcapture->provideanswers” is turned on it’s head, of sorts. It’s about solving problems first, and providing (immediate) answers and leveraging content marketing second.”
However, these quizzes and interactive content engines are actually used for a whole lot more than simply taking up some time or as a fun way to brag to your friends about the great results that you got on a quiz.
The new interactive content marketing map (ioninteractive)
These online quizzes are actually a powerful framework and toolset that you can use for lead generation and viral engagement for your website.
Examples of interactive content tools you can add to your websites, blogs and social media channels:
All you have to do is strategically place an email capture just in front of the results of the quiz.
Most of the quiz takers are going to be itching to find out what their results are, so the best quizzes will actually fall in line with about a 50% opt-in rate. Plus, the lead quality is often higher.
When you want to be able to use a quiz on your website to help you with some great lead generation you will find that there are some major ways that you can really maximize your conversion rates.
A recent study from B2B Content Marketing Trends showed that ‘Producing Engaging Content’ was the biggest challenge, right before ‘Measuring Content Effectiveness’.
From ContentMarketingInstitute.com (CMI)
A new breed of marketing talent and content know-how will be needed, because interactive content also requires design and development expertise.
How to start building interactive content?
To begin a interactive content strategy, ask what data you want, and what service your buyers want.
Compare and contrast with what your sales teams want. Ask them to cooperate on building a quiz for the highest MQL‘s (marketing qualified leads) possible. Always keep your intended audience in mind first. How can this quiz really help them make decisions?
You’ll begin to see a positive shift in your sales accepted leads (SAL), all while your are educating and helping your customers and prospects. That’s a winning formula.
A popular trend today is that the highest converting quizzes are doing a great job of building up a decent rapport with their quiz takers well before they present the offer to opt-in.
As a person looking around online today, we all enjoy the ability to have a great conversation.
Talking with another person is a process that releases Oxytocin, which is a drug in the human body that makes us feel good.
These quizzes that are able to succeed on a conversational level are also those that generate the most leads.
In order to do so, you need to be able to create a connection, which can be done by using your personality.
Here’s an example of what Orbitz has done with a fun travel quiz:
Orbitz Travel Quiz Example
Any quiz that comes off as having personality will have the feel of being more human, which will then help the quiz taker to feel more comfortable so that they are willing to fill in their email address.
Wit and charm can go a long way to make someone feel as though they are talking to a real person when filling out a quiz that is filled with snark and personality.
Additionally, you can take the initiative to create your quiz as though you are talking to an actual person.
This can be done simply by thinking about a person that would enjoy your content or the quiz and write it as though you are speaking directly to them.
Stay Relevant
If you are putting together a quiz for your website that is going to be all about content marketing, you need to have a call to action that has to be about CONTENT MARKETING.
By the same token, if you are putting together a quiz on sharpening your writing skills, the call to action has to be about writing skills.
Basically speaking, the content has to be able to provide an experience that is continuous in order to captivate a quiz taker and there should be no call to action that is a surprise.
The emails are entering into their inbox and they will end up taking up space and the quiz taker’s valuable time.
Because you are asking for something of value, you need to be able to give them something that is valuable in return.
With each quiz that you are using for lead generation, the value will be in the results. This will mean that the more involved the quiz is, the more valuable your results will be.
You need to remember that having the approval to email someone is something that you should not take lightly.
We recommend displaying the results right after the quiz, and not holding the quiz taker ‘hostage’. Provide the results and recommendations, but allow them to download the results and get more relevant information by entering their name & email. (Note: test this for your own market!)
Solve A Problem
If a customer is going to be asking you a question, the chances are that there were other customers that have had the same question whether they realize it or not.
Some of these customers may simply be too shy to bring up the question or they just feel as though they would not enjoy the answer to the particular question.
Answering the questions that any of your current or potential customers may have will be the perfect way to generate content that you know they will appreciate.
Positive Is Always Better Than Negative
The bottom line is that there are two ways that you can offer your help:
One way is telling quiz takers that they are in trouble and they need your services so that they can get out of trouble.
The other way is to tell people that they are great, they just need your services to make them even better than they are currently.
Some of the quizzes that are the highest converting are those that will give people fun and really helpful answers to the questions that they have or those that are going to test them on their knowledge or expertise.
Social sharing / viral opportunity
Everyone likes to hear that they scored better than a friend or a family member on a quiz, so they will be more than likely to take the quiz themselves so that they can have bragging rights.
Keep your quizzes to the point, make sure that they load easily and always be strategic about the content that you have as well as the placement of your opt-in form.
Conclusion
When all is said and done, you will see that a well planned out quiz and interactive content can be a perfect viral engagement tool for your website.
Make sure to add social widgets (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn share buttons) and create sharing texts that entice the audience to take it also.
The power of the interactive content marketing model actually lies in the personalization. So, make sure that you are smart about the lead boxes that you use and have fun with your quiz options.
Brands can take their content marketing to new levels with interactive content and quizzes while providing great value, and making their sales teams excited about the new daily leads they get.
Data driven marketing is not just a way for businesses to refine and target their marketing efforts more effectively, but it has become a REAL expectation from customers as well.
“Arguably, the most important evolution in the history of marketing is the ability to understand what data you have, what data you can get, how to organize and, ultimately, how to activate the data” – Mark Flaharty, SundaySky
In its analysis of 2015, the analytical data platform Teradata (Download PDF: Global Data Driven Marketing Survey Report) revealed that “customers have grown accustomed to marketers’ knowledge of their preferences and anticipation of their needs.”
Therefore, the following appears to be true: (Please RT – click on bird!)
“Customer feedback implies that data driven marketing is not seen as intrusive but rather, is well-received” – Jon Rognerud (@jonrognerud)
Businesses are recognizing the need for data driven marketing and many are seeing how it aligns with their business goals and expectations.
They understand the importance of focusing on consumers and better predicting their actions, habits and preferences.
The biggest drivers of increased data marketing include:
Maximized efficiency of marketing investments
Improved knowledge of customers and prospects
Improved alignment with consumer preferences and needs
A growing availability of audience data, providing better data capabilities
A need to become more customer oriented
However, knowing why data driven marketing is important is different than knowing where your efforts need to focused.
While one of your primary goals may be to improve the efficiency of advertising campaigns, you need to know what type of data is going to help you accomplish this as well.
Data gathering efforts are typically focused toward:
Data related to offers, messages and content
Product development
Customer experience
Audience analytics and measurement
Predictive analysis
By capturing data in these categories, businesses can use the information for better consumer engagement across numerous channels, online and offline.
Some of the most popular channels for data driven marketing include websites, mobile apps, call centers, social media, in-store, direct mail and catalogs.
Don’t take my word for it though… let the data tell you this.
Data provides a logical approach to outlining your marketing strategies. Through testing and analyzing various channels, you can find which ones work well for your business.
As an example, while mobile apps can be effective in many industries, they aren’t suitable for all and there’s pre-existing data to prove this. You can use this data for determining the practicality of investing in these areas.
Data driven marketing is beginning to be recognized for the opportunities it creates as well.
Businesses that allow data to guide their marketing priorities are able to personalize the customer experience with:
custom messages,
acquiring analytical skills that can be used to leverage insights,
get higher customer acquisitions,
boost conversion and retention rates,
and improve efficiency by significant margins.
It is only a matter of time before the right data crosses your path. There is no better way to acquire data than to test the waters, make mistakes and learn from them.
That’s not to say that you will have issues. In the Teradata report, there are obstacles preventing marketing from becoming more data driven:
Report: obstacles to becoming more data driven
Here are 6 immutable laws of data driven marketing to guide you along the way:
1. Follow the data – internally and externally
While data driven marketing is mostly about the consumer, don’t forget that there is a lot to be learned from your employees and the obstacles they face as well.
Sometimes you have to look inward to engage customers more effectively.
Your employees will be the most familiar with important business procedures such as order management and client retention practices.
There is often data here that can be collected and analyzed to find valuable insights.
Address things that may be holding you back as well as things that are working well for the business. You can learn from both positive and negative data.
2. Don’t let data stunt creativity
Data driven marketing is about letting the numbers influence decision making but it shouldn’t interfere with creativity and exploration.
Use data and creativity – with a balance
Don’t let the metrics steer your business into a black and white decision making process.
There is such a thing as being too data-driven, where you lose the personal touch and human element that your business once had.
Let the data inspire and guide you rather than catering every action or task toward its findings.
3. Use technology for analytical insights and marketing automation
Whether you are marketing through a website, app, television or any other channel, technology is your assistant to data driven marketing and automation.
Use the tools and resources available to your for gaining analytical insights.
For your website, there is Google Analytics, which helps you better understand your traffic, where it comes from and how users behave once arriving at your website.
For virtually every marketing channel, there are analytical tools that gather data for you automatically, taking the hassle out of the process and making your job easier.
Similarly, most marketing channels have solutions that can help you automate some of the process.
For instance, for websites you can look into email marketing automation through MailChimp.
These tools create entirely new categories of data, allowing you to explore and come up with ideas.
MailChimp tells you which email subjects perform the best, your open rate and much more. The technology you use creates new data pathways that can inspire you.
4. Continue to measure and experiment
Having the right data on hand won’t help unless you integrate your findings and continue to measure and test the results.
Be adventurous and find what works for you and what doesn’t. Let the data guide you to make changes to your marketing campaigns.
With the right reporting setup, you will be able to view in real-time how your campaigns are responding to the adjustments.
Data driven marketing is sometimes a repetitive process of tinkering and learning but with the right tools, you will be able to deliver better content to your audience.
5. Redeploy and scale
When you’ve made your adjustments and got the formula just right, you’re ready to redeploy and start investing more money.
By continuing to measure and test, you will optimize your campaigns for maximum ROI and slowly raise the bar for quality score and effectiveness.
Scaling allows you to make use of your efforts and get more revenue out of the hard work and changes you’ve made by following the data.
6. Stay true to the user experience
It can be tempting to allow data to model every decision you make.
(From usabilitygeek.com)
When you do this, you often sacrifice the user experience for changes that the data suggests should be profitable but when implemented, does not prove to be as promising.
Remember to always stay true to the user experience and you shouldn’t have this problem.
Before making adjustments, imagine yourself as a consumer and how the change would impact your thoughts, opinions and overall user experience.
Sometimes data can compel you to make changes that sacrifice important attributes that were working for your marketing campaigns.
By staying true to the user experience you put value and engagement ahead of everything else and create the best possible outcome for the user.
All marketing executives in today’s markets want to serve their customers better. They want answers. You can find it in the data.
Resources, tools and further data-driven marketing research:
Drawbridge (enable marketers to sync cross device)
Liveramp (onboarding and unification of customer data across disparate systems)
