Monday 30 December 2019

James Clear: The Habits that Led to 500k Email Subs and 1 Million Books Sold (FS359)

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.” – James Clear

James Clear is the New York Times bestselling author of Atomic Habits, which has sold over one million copies. James also writes weekly about habits, decisions, human performance and more over at jamesclear.com, where over half a million people subscribe to his weekly email newsletter.

In this interview James shares the habits that he used to build his business and write a bestselling book over the past several years. This conversation is essential for anyone who wants to improve habits or grow an audience online.

Listen to the episode:

Subscribe to The Fizzle Show in your favorite podcast player:

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A Decade of Leadership: OCE Maintains its Position as a Leader in Gartner’s 2019 WCM MQ

Originally published here:  https://blogs.oracle.com/content/a-decade-of-leadership:-oce-maintains-its-position-as-a-leader-in-gartners-2019-wcm-mq-v2

Oracle Content and Experience is excited and proud to announce another year, our 10th year as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management. This space has continually evolved to include a much broader reach for content, including creation, site management features, complex API’s, personalization, and digital asset management. Throughout that evolution Oracle has remained committed to listening to our customers and the market to ensure OCE would stay ahead of the innovation curve, provide the best of breed platform to the market and ensure their leader position in the Magic Quadrant.

OCE represents architecturally powerful rethinking of WCM in the context of the customer experience.  Building on channel-agnostic content modeling and an API first foundation, Oracle continues to innovate with a move to a pageless, dynamic experience assembly paradigm and AI-assisted content authoring’, Gartner acclaimed.

CMSCMedia recently interviewed OCE’s SVP of Product Development, Chris Stone in regards to the Gartner MQ.  A key point he made was in reference to the evolution of Oracle’s content offering including WebCenter and OCE.  “We are not ‘moving’ anyone. We have an extremely large and profitable install base. It is our intention to give our customers the option to stay where they are as well take advantage of OCE. We built the capability to store, manage, and distribute WebCenter products content/documents directly into OCE’s repository via our Connector framework. This allows our customer base to migrate as they fit.  Either one asset at a time with a new subscription model or bulk migrate whenever they want. This protects their investment, gives them a taste of using the Cloud service, and allows them to migrate as budgets allow. It’s working."  The rest of the article can be found here.

To review the entire Gartner MQ report go here.

To learn more about Oracle Content and Experience, or to try us out visit us here.

                                                                           

Oracle was also once again named a leader in Gartner's 2019 Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management. See ow they stack up against other leaders.

Read the report.



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Friday 27 December 2019

What Are the Key Components of an Effective Martech Stack?

Do you have a marketing stack? You may have heard the term but aren’t sure if that’s what you are using. If you have stacked your organization with marketing technology and tools, then to some degree you have a martech stock in place. Typically, it includes a range of software, platforms like SaaS, social media tools, and marketing technology that you can use across numerous channels. 

Too Much of a Good Thing

What often happens, though, is that many marketing organizations think more is better, so they keep adding more technology and tools to their martech stack. CMS Wire reported that there are nearly 7,000 martech products now available, so it can be easy to take on too many tools and technologies.

The martech stack can look more like a tower -- or even a skyscraper. While it may seem right, this approach doesn’t necessarily work or produce the return for such a significant investment and allocation of resources.

If the right martech stack is not based on quantity, then it must focus on quality. To a certain degree, yes, but it’s also still tied to quantity. And, most importantly, it’s about what your organization looks like, who it reaches, and what budget is available to develop, maintain, and expand that martech stack.

Here are some recommendations for what your martech stack should look like based on many scenarios. Let’s start with the basics first.

Key Components of Every Martech Stack

There are some basic building blocks that should go into every martech stack:

  • Email marketing platform to manage email marketing campaigns
  • Automation software like a social media scheduling tool to optimize time spent on social media efforts
  • Content management system to host your website and blog
  • SEO tools to provide guidance on reaching your audience
  • Advertising technology to help get customers and reach new segments
  • Analytics tools to analyze and organize all types of data to inform marketing decisions
  • Mobile marketing tools and apps
  • CRM software to collaborate with sales on efforts to personalize the customer experience
Addressing Unique Needs and Marketing Objectives

The right martech stack for your company is one that aligns with the needs and objectives you have set as a marketing organization. It must contain the tools to meet those needs and achieve your objectives.

Also, a B2C company will have a different martech stack than a B2B company. Each type of company leverages different marketing channels to get and keep customers. For this article, we will focus on B2B martech stack formats that might be right for your business.

Leads-Focused Format

If your primary aim is to get more leads that you can convert, then your martech stack may have a digital marketing blueprint. The blueprint should focus on tools and tech that build trust and generate traffic.

This blueprint contains tools for SEO and SEM, content development, social media marketing, and targeted landing pages. There should also be analytics tools to gauge lead generation results.

Journey Format

One approach to preparing your martech stack involves structuring it around the buyers’ journey. Doing so aligns your martech stack with building awareness, acquiring new customers, and retaining those customers over time.

Your martech stack has tools that address those three primary objectives. The stack can do this by providing access to the data and analysis. From there, you can leverage other martech to engage with these buyers throughout their purchase journey. Examples include white papers, guides, relevant written and video content, remarketing, and social media marketing.

Platform-Based Format

With this martech stack, the structure offers a way to maintain a lean and efficient tool set for your marketing department. It’s the ideal structure for a smaller enterprise with a limited budget. However, by relying on marketing platforms, you can scale as you expand the marketing organization. With platforms that handle many marketing tactics, you can then add on martech building blocks in the form of applications that address new marketing channels or vehicles.

Role-Based Format

Another option for your martech stack is to slot in martech tools around specific roles within marketing. This structural approach ties directly to your marketing objectives by aligning resources with tactics designed to achieve those objectives.

For example, your martech stack will have technology solutions for content, lead generation, social media marketing, and thought leadership. You can also opt to create a role-based martech stack geared toward marketing activity roles, such as prospecting, nurturing, remarketing, influencers, personalization, and automation.

Evolving Your Martech Stack

Think of your martech stack as a dynamic structure. As your marketing objectives evolve so should the format for your martech stack. For example, if your martech stack was once focused solely on leads and you achieved that objective, it’s time to adapt it to the next marketing objective. While many of the tools and technology may be the same for other objectives, you’ll need to swap out or add those platforms or applications that are more relevant.

Before diving in and accumulating as many of the nearly 7,000 martech tools now available, create a technology roadmap that overlays your marketing strategy to effectively leverage marketing tools and platforms. If you already have the tools for these goals, you can always reassess what’s new or determine if a platform can replace two or more tools to make your martech stack more manageable. 

                                                       

Technology now drives marketing. There are many tools to use, but you have to know which are better suited to your purposes and how to best use them. Find out more about “Emerging Tech: Marketing Wins and Woes.”

See the infographic.



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Monday 23 December 2019

Oracle Content & Experience Partners with Lingotek to Deliver Cloud Translation Technology

Originally published at: https://blogs.oracle.com/content/oracle-content-experience-partners-with-lingotek-to-deliver-cloud-translation-technology

 

Oracle Content & Experience product leaders are pleased to announce another exciting partnership with translation technology experts, Lingotek. This partnership provides OCE customers the ability to initiate and monitor the translation process of any content right from within the native OCE system.  Once submitted, there are customizable, easy-to-use workflows that govern the flow of content to achieve the desired outcomes of quality, timeline and cost.

Lingotek, the leader in innovative translation solutions, was the first to introduce cloud-based translation management technology to the market. Today Lingotek also offers a well-established network of professional translation experts throughout the globe in addition to robust API’s which integrate seamlessly with Oracle Content and Experience’s application.

"With an out-of-the-box connector into OCE, and connectors into other Oracle products like Eloqua and WebCenter Content and Sites, a strategic partnership between Oracle and Lingotek just makes sense," says Jeff Labrum, CEO at Lingotek. "These deep connections between Oracle's products and the Lingotek Translation Technology really streamlines the translation of digital assets, and leverage the power of our combined solutions. This really is a win-win for our joint enterprise customers."

This provides OCE customers the capability to handle regionalized content tasks and global teamwork processes in a much more dynamic way including:

  • Creating multilingual content very efficiently including providing  real-time translation status
  • Automated translation profiles simplify submission of multilingual content
  • Integrated glossaries, translation memory and machine translation increase the speed and reduce the cost of translation
  • Customizable translation workflows provide flexibility in content type, quality and budget needs

 

 

The ability to have an international presence rapidly localized for global markets is critical for enterprise organizations. The localization process can be a painstaking one that drains time and effort away from other mission critical activities.  By streamlining this process through OCE, our customers reap the benefits of a truly global content management hub.  Lingotek is a long term partner of Oracle and is currently listed on the Oracle Cloud Marketplace as a translation provider for Oracle Eloqua.

Stay tuned to all the latest announcements as the excitement around OCE continues the build! There’s never been a more exciting time for content creators, managers, and users to start looking at Oracle for their content and experience needs.

About Lingotek

The Translation Network is the only cloud-based solution to connect all of your global content in one place, giving you the power to manage your brand worldwide. Our industry-leading technology pairs with the best enterprise applications and expert language services to continuously push dynamic multilingual content to all of your global markets. Lingotek is based in Lehi, Utah, and has an office in the United Kingdom.

                                                      

For more information about Oracle Eloqua, visit us here. 



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Sunday 22 December 2019

Don't Pander to Social Movements

On the Fly, our new video series with small bites (two mins or less) of marketing advice and training from marketing experts, delivered while they are on the road, at the airport, or traveling somewhere. 

Katie Martell calls it like it is and has rightly earned the title “unapologetic marketing truth-teller”. In this episode of On the Fly, she warns us to be careful of pandering to social movements. If your company doesn’t actually support the movements in its policies, it should not be misleading anyone by pandering to it . Your informed customers can see right through your marketing ploy, and what you might think is clever marketing is actually exploitation, says Katie. This can threaten both the movements that your brand wants to alight itself with, as well as your brand’s reputation.  

Watch full video to learn how not to be a “Pandering Panda”:

Visit OnTheFly.Expert to see all episodes. 

 

Protecting your brand and reputation is important to build trust with your customers. You should also be safeguarding their data and not misusing them in any way, such as sending unwanted emails. Find out how to “Do More with Email Deliverability and Data Privacy.



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Friday 20 December 2019

Quoth the Raven: 5 Takeaways from Edgar Allan Poe for Content Marketers

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."  - "A Dream Within a Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe is no doubt one of the greatest writers of all time. He likely invented both the mystery and suspense genres. Content marketers and content creators of all kinds are also writers and artists, working on blogs, design, landing pages, case studies, infographics and more. There is much they can learn from Poe, even more than a century after his death. 

Tone and Mood

“I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.” – “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Few writers managed to evoke dread and a mounting suspense of fear like Poe did. Readers can simply sense that something is off and about to go horribly wrong in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Similarly, you can feel the unnamed narrator slowly losing his grip on his sanity as “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

When you are creating an asset, what is the tone and mood you are trying to strike? Of course, you’re not trying to instill dread and creeping fear into your audiences. No, you’re trying to impart information and value to help your audiences solve problems (or get one step closer to solving a problem). Still, you need to strike the tone of your brand, which will change from company to company, business to business, and industry to industry.

In this case, you have to do the opposite of Poe: you have to make our readers feel welcome. Does humor work well with your audience? What is the proper tone that conveys your brand’s character and how can you best get your information across? Intriguing copy? Visuals?

Like Poe, though, you have to be clear and straightforward in your messaging. While Poe often uses mystery as a great writing tool, you have to be straightforward. Poe never said his narrator was going mad, but everyone understood it. You have to make sure that your copy and content carries this same level of clarity, even if you have to be more upfront about it than Poe ever could be.

Brevity and Conciseness

“And the only word there whispered was the whispered word, ‘Lenore?’” – “The Raven”

Poe is best known for his short stories and his most famous poem, “The Raven.” However, he once attempted a novel and was both a prolific poet and editor. Even his one novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, is only about 176 pages. So, for a novel, it is on the short side.

Of course, Poe was a succinct writer, who only used as many words as was needed. He kept things as short and concise as possible for proper impact.

Copywriters, blog contributors, and marketing writers of all kinds should emulate this approach. Especially now that we are in the digital age of marketing, you only have so much space to use. Most marketing emails are only a few paragraphs. Newsletters are longer, but do they ever really run that long?

Social media posts are even shorter, and when web writing, you’re often working with microcopy or writing short, simple copy to make the strongest point and impact. Blogs, marketing collateral, and case studies might give you the chance to write something even longer, but you’re not writing novels.

As most professional writers will tell you, concise writing is good writing. No unnecessary words or information. Get to your point and make things as clear as you can. Concise does not mean short. It means only taking up as much writing space as you need. An image can be concise, too. Often times, both visuals and the written word, simpler and cleaner work the best and leave the strongest lasting impression.

Calculation and Formula

“There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story.” – “The Philosophy of Composition”

In his “Philosophy of Composition,” Poe argued that every poem needed to have each and every one of its lines calculated for proper effect. This meant that he tinkered and rewrote each line, measuring it for the response it would create or the emotion it would stir in the reader.

Content creators do something very similar. They have digital analytics to know what their audience’s preferences, interests, and needs are. Therefore, they can craft content that speaks to those needs and shows their audience how their brand can help with their problems or offer information that makes their jobs and lives easier.

When creating content, you do not ramble on and create poetic verse simply for the sake of. You take what space you have, and you address your audience’s wants and needs. Sometimes, you can be more creative in doing so, sometimes not, depending on your brand and the type of content is it. However, you are not in the dark. You have data to guide you in creating something that is effective and drives people to action (clicking through on a link, downloading a pdf, signing up for a newsletter, and so forth).

Create and Innovate

“In me you lived—and, in my death—see by this face, which is your own, how wholly, how completely you have killed—your self!” – “William Wilson”

Poe is widely credited with creating the detective fiction genre with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and the psychological thriller with “The Tell-Tale Heart.” “The Raven,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “William Wilson,” and many of his works contributed greatly to the genres of horror and suspense.

When he wasn’t outright creating genres, he was innovating the short story and the format of a poem.

Content creators (and marketers in general) also need to know when to create and innovate. It’s not always about reinventing the wheel. Email marketing is still an effective way to reach and connect with customers. Social media and mobile are still important channels as well. You do not need to create a new channel. What you do with each channel is what matters.

What is the most impactful email you can create?

How can you keep people interested on social media?

What are you doing with the mobile channel?

This is where you can innovate.

But where can you create?

What about your blogs? How creative can they be? How clever? Can you experiment with the format?

What different types of content assets can you dream up?

A how-to? Interview? What about a video? An infographic? Cartoon? Comic strip?

Really, the sky (and your brand) are the limit.

Quoth the Content Manager, Nevermore, Nevermore

Marketers and writers can always look back to the greats for ideas and inspiration. After all, it was authors and artists like Edgar Allan Poe who made us want to become writers, artists, painters, and creatives in the first place.

                                                                                                           

Feeling creatively stifled at work? Are you looking to find a way to let your inner artist out? We might be able to help. Learn “How to Find the Right Voice and Tone and Work with Your Brand’s Style Guide.”

Check out the blog.

 

 

 

 



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Quoth the Raven: 4 Takeaways from Edgar Allan Poe for Content Marketers

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."  - "A Dream Within a Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe is no doubt one of the greatest writers of all time. He likely invented both the mystery and suspense genres. Content marketers and content creators of all kinds are also writers and artists, working on blogs, design, landing pages, case studies, infographics and more. There is much they can learn from Poe, even more than a century after his death. 

Tone and Mood

“I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.” – “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Few writers managed to evoke dread and a mounting suspense of fear like Poe did. Readers can simply sense that something is off and about to go horribly wrong in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Similarly, you can feel the unnamed narrator slowly losing his grip on his sanity as “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

When you are creating an asset, what is the tone and mood you are trying to strike? Of course, you’re not trying to instill dread and creeping fear into your audiences. No, you’re trying to impart information and value to help your audiences solve problems (or get one step closer to solving a problem). Still, you need to strike the tone of your brand, which will change from company to company, business to business, and industry to industry.

In this case, you have to do the opposite of Poe: you have to make our readers feel welcome. Does humor work well with your audience? What is the proper tone that conveys your brand’s character and how can you best get your information across? Intriguing copy? Visuals?

Like Poe, though, you have to be clear and straightforward in your messaging. While Poe often uses mystery as a great writing tool, you have to be straightforward. Poe never said his narrator was going mad, but everyone understood it. You have to make sure that your copy and content carries this same level of clarity, even if you have to be more upfront about it than Poe ever could be.

Brevity and Conciseness

“And the only word there whispered was the whispered word, ‘Lenore?’” – “The Raven”

Poe is best known for his short stories and his most famous poem, “The Raven.” However, he once attempted a novel and was both a prolific poet and editor. Even his one novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, is only about 176 pages. So, for a novel, it is on the short side.

Of course, Poe was a succinct writer, who only used as many words as was needed. He kept things as short and concise as possible for proper impact.

Copywriters, blog contributors, and marketing writers of all kinds should emulate this approach. Especially now that we are in the digital age of marketing, you only have so much space to use. Most marketing emails are only a few paragraphs. Newsletters are longer, but do they ever really run that long?

Social media posts are even shorter, and when web writing, you’re often working with microcopy or writing short, simple copy to make the strongest point and impact. Blogs, marketing collateral, and case studies might give you the chance to write something even longer, but you’re not writing novels.

As most professional writers will tell you, concise writing is good writing. No unnecessary words or information. Get to your point and make things as clear as you can. Concise does not mean short. It means only taking up as much writing space as you need. An image can be concise, too. Often times, both visuals and the written word, simpler and cleaner work the best and leave the strongest lasting impression.

Calculation and Formula

“There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story.” – “The Philosophy of Composition”

In his “Philosophy of Composition,” Poe argued that every poem needed to have each and every one of its lines calculated for proper effect. This meant that he tinkered and rewrote each line, measuring it for the response it would create or the emotion it would stir in the reader.

Content creators do something very similar. They have digital analytics to know what their audience’s preferences, interests, and needs are. Therefore, they can craft content that speaks to those needs and shows their audience how their brand can help with their problems or offer information that makes their jobs and lives easier.

When creating content, you do not ramble on and create poetic verse simply for the sake of. You take what space you have, and you address your audience’s wants and needs. Sometimes, you can be more creative in doing so, sometimes not, depending on your brand and the type of content is it. However, you are not in the dark. You have data to guide you in creating something that is effective and drives people to action (clicking through on a link, downloading a pdf, signing up for a newsletter, and so forth).

Create and Innovate

“In me you lived—and, in my death—see by this face, which is your own, how wholly, how completely you have killed—your self!” – “William Wilson”

Poe is widely credited with creating the detective fiction genre with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and the psychological thriller with “The Tell-Tale Heart.” “The Raven,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “William Wilson,” and many of his works contributed greatly to the genres of horror and suspense.

When he wasn’t outright creating genres, he was innovating the short story and the format of a poem.

Content creators (and marketers in general) also need to know when to create and innovate. It’s not always about reinventing the wheel. Email marketing is still an effective way to reach and connect with customers. Social media and mobile are still important channels as well. You do not need to create a new channel. What you do with each channel is what matters.

What is the most impactful email you can create?

How can you keep people interested on social media?

What are you doing with the mobile channel?

This is where you can innovate.

But where can you create?

What about your blogs? How creative can they be? How clever? Can you experiment with the format?

What different types of content assets can you dream up?

A how-to? Interview? What about a video? An infographic? Cartoon? Comic strip?

Really, the sky (and your brand) are the limit.

Quoth the Content Manager, Nevermore, Nevermore

Marketers and writers can always look back to the greats for ideas and inspiration. After all, it was authors and artists like Edgar Allan Poe who made us want to become writers, artists, painters, and creatives in the first place.

                                                                                                           

Feeling creatively stifled at work? Are you looking to find a way to let your inner artist out? We might be able to help. Learn “How to Find the Right Voice and Tone and Work with Your Brand’s Style Guide.”

Check out the blog.

 

 

 

 



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Thursday 19 December 2019

Working Hard but Not Making Any Progress? (FS358)

Sometimes we work incredibly hard, but don’t see much progress toward our goals. When this happens, what should we do? How do we know if what we’re working on will eventually lead somewhere, or if we should change course?

In this special “office hours” Q&A episode, we cover this and much more!

Listen to the episode:

Subscribe to The Fizzle Show in your favorite podcast player:

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Today’s episode is brought to you by Podia. Podia is like a Swiss Army Knife for selling anything you need online. Fizzle Show listeners can get 15% off of Podia FOR LIFE by signing up for a free trial over at http://podia.com/fizzle.

This episode is also brought to you by Gusto. Gusto offers modern, easy payroll and benefits to small businesses across the country. Get three months free when you run your first payroll. https://gusto.com/fizzle

The post Working Hard but Not Making Any Progress? (FS358) appeared first on Fizzle.



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When You’re Ready for a Change, Don’t Hesitate

This is the last Copyblogger Weekly of the year — and the decade! And actually, it’s the last Copyblogger Weekly...

The post When You’re Ready for a Change, Don’t Hesitate appeared first on Copyblogger.



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Holiday Marketing Quarterly: Doing an Email Marketing Holiday Post-Mortem

The holiday season doesn’t have an off-season, which is why Oracle CX Marketing Consulting provides year-round advice through our new Holiday Marketing Quarterly. Our first quarter checklist for holiday readiness covers six areas:

  1. Holiday Post-Mortems

  2. Seasonal Buyer Reactivations

  3. Email Deliverability Recoveries

  4. Automated Email Optimization & Growth

  5. Creative Refreshes

  6. Upgrades & Expansions of Your Tech Stack

Check out the full 14-page guide for details on each of those areas, but in this post we wanted to focus on that critical first step of doing a holiday post-mortem on your email marketing performance.

With the New Year shining brightly and full of promise ahead of us, most B2C marketers would love nothing more than to put the holiday season behind them and look ahead to Valentine’s Day and the spring season. We urge you to resist the temptation. Ensure that you learn the lessons of your Christmas Past, so your Christmas Future is even better. 

Here are several areas to explore as part of your holiday post-mortem, which you can not only review when you kick off the next holiday season campaign planning cycle, but will give you insights and action items that you can use right now:

Analyze the performance of your holiday email campaigns.
Ask yourself: How did my brand perform overall during the holiday season? How did my email channel perform compared to other marketing channels? How did my email channel perform versus the previous holiday season? How did my email channel perform versus our forecast? How did my email marketing strategy affect the health of my email program?

In particular, that last item can have immediate ramifications on your email program, including how narrowly you target your upcoming campaigns, how you treat your inactive subscribers, where you focus your subscriber acquisition efforts, and more.

“Assessing the incremental unsubscribes, hard bounces, and complaints driven by the typically much higher holiday email cadence can help you better assess how to approach frequency post-holiday,” says Peter Briggs, Director of Strategic Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. “It can also help you better calculate the return on investment of your increased email frequency. In some instances, the boost in visits driven by sending more email may not be worth the loss of long-term revenue from subscribers who unsubscribed because of the additional emails.”

Identify your successful campaigns. 

Take note of your promotions that outperformed, and then try to determine why they did. Was it the offer, design, subject line, theme, timing, segmentation, personalization, or something else? Look for ways to repurpose those emails or reuse the winning elements of those emails in future campaigns.

Sometimes marketers think that everything they create needs to be completely new, but I’ve seen retailers reuse the exact same email creative a year or two after sending it the first time. I’ve also seen brands use the same concept over and over, making slight improvements each time. An email campaign doesn’t have to be original. It has to perform. If you have a winning email design or tactic, get more mileage out of it.

Identify your unsuccessful campaigns.

This is the more uncomfortable flip side of our last tip, but knowing what not to do is just as helpful as knowing what to do again. For your campaigns that underperformed, can you identify the elements that contributed to that? If so, make a note to avoid them in the future. Was there a fatal flaw that could be fixed to make this campaign a success in the future? Are there any good ideas that can be salvaged from these subpar campaigns?

Map the performance of your email campaigns by day. 

While Cyber Monday and Black Friday are likely to be your No. 1 and 2, the rest of your top performing days may be a bit of a surprise. 

“I see a lot of brands focused on the performance of the key holiday shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but they can lose sight of the fact that there are often other shopping days during the holidays that all play a key role in reaching goals,” says Chris Wilson, Strategic Director of Strategic Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. “For example, the days surrounding Black Friday and Cyber Monday are often impactful shopping days as well and should be given adequate attention when planning.”

Also—and this is critical—your most impactful days are subject to change from year to year because of the shifting timing of Christmas, the shifting number of weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and other changes. For instance, last year Thanksgiving fell late on the calendar, reducing the number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas to just 26. That led many B2C brands to push holiday and “Black Friday” promotions well before the actual Black Friday. And with Christmas Day falling on a Wednesday, it allowed order-by deadlines to drift a little later than in recent years because of the availability of delivery on that Monday before Christmas.

If you’re able, take a look back at several years of sales and email performance data to note how performance changes with the calendar from year to year, then use this to help plan your campaigns for the upcoming holiday season.  

Document any workflow issues that impacted email production. 

Now let’s look beyond performance to the people, tools, and processes that make your email marketing program work. Were you unable to create all of the emails that you’d planned to because of inadequate resources? Did you have to simplify any of your emails, abandoning plans to include personalization, A/B tests, or interactivity, for example? 

If so, consider investing in better workflow tools such as modular email build systems, investing in better training so your designers and coders are more efficient, and investing in agency services that can help you scale during peak seasons like the holidays.

“Every holiday season, email marketers have grand plans to create something really special,” says Lizette Resendez, Associate Creative Director and Copy Director, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. “But if you don’t invest in the processes, training, and resources you need to bring it to life beforehand—like months beforehand—it won’t happen, and you’ll have to wait a whole other year for your chance to shine.”

Document any quality control and PR issues. 

Beyond workflow efficiencies, let’s talk about QA and errors. Did any of your emails get sent with significant errors in them that impacted performance or hurt your brand image? Did you have to send any apology emails for email marketing mistakes? Did you have any non-email issues that led to corrections or apologies? 

We recommend keeping a year-round log of errors, including when they occurred, the cause of the error, any remediation that happened, and any negative effects from them. This not only allows you and your team to learn from your mistakes, it gives you evidence to argue for process changes and the adoption of new tools to address the weaknesses that are leading to problems.

Explore each of those topics in your holiday post-mortem and you’ll be off to a good start in getting yourself ready for the 2020 holiday season. But to get off to a great start, be sure to look at all the issues covered in the 14-page first quarter edition of our Holiday Marketing Quarterly.

—————

Need help with your email marketing program? Oracle CX Marketing Consulting has more than 500 of the leading marketing minds ready to help you to achieve more with the leading marketing cloud, including teams that specialize in email creative, deliverability, strategy, automation, implementation, and a wide range of other services.

Learn more or reach out to us at OMCconsulting@oracle.com

For more information about email marketing and the tools you need to succeed at it, please visit: https://www.oracle.com/marketingcloud/.

 

 

 



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Wednesday 18 December 2019

Value Proposition, Web Design, and Wireframing: Your peers’ favorite MarketingExperiments articles and videos of 2019


(This article was originally published in the MarketingExperiments email newsletter.)

Year-end wrap-up articles tend to focus on the newest cutting-edge technology — that new AI-powered, machine-learning doohickey that uses blockchain technology to automate an influencer marketing hub.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The new can be helpful, but like a kitten playing with tinsel on Christmas morning (or even worse, playing with a lit menorah on the eighth night of Hanukkah), we can all too easily get distracted (and even burned) by the new and shiny at the expense of the fundamental and foundational.

In 2019, sure, we here are MarketingExperiments tried to find novel, innovative ways to serve you — most notably, our new, interactive sessions broadcast through YouTube Live.

But when I looked in the ‘ol analytics platform to see which MarketingExperiments content got the most pageviews, much of the content your peers found most helpful was in fact based on fundamental and foundational principles. We’ve shared that information below in the hopes that these articles and videos can help you as well.

 

How to Amplify the Power of Your Value Proposition

This was the first MarketingExperiments YouTube Live session and is, so far, the most popular. In it, Flint McGlaughlin, CEO and Managing Director, MECLABS Institute (parent organization of MarketingExperiments), teaches a four-part framework that represents the number one way to drive results.

Here’s how Frank Ofem describes the session in the YouTube comments: “This is loaded!!! On replay more than 4 times and still having crystals on my notepad!!! JUST Awesome …”

WATCH NOW

 

The 21 Psychological Elements that Power Effective Web Design (Part 1)

Flint taught a framework to help you think about your webpages systematically in order to achieve consistent conversion lifts.

After watching this video, Betsey O’Hagan went on Facebook to say she was, “Grateful for Flint McGlaughlin’s passion, energy, and learning.”

WATCH NOW

 

How to Wireframe a Landing Page: 6 steps

A MarketingExperiments reader emailed us and asked about our wireframing process. So, we wrote this article breaking it down step by step.

On LinkedIn, Miles Bennett said, “Interesting post on how to #wireframe a #landingpage.  Ok it’s a little more — it’s a step-by-step guide and quite insightful.  Have you set your objectives?  Is measurement in place? Have you done customer testing? #wortharead”

READ NOW

 

CRO Cheat Sheet: Customer thinking guide for conversion rate optimization

This article features a free tool based on the MECLABS Institute Conversion Heuristic to help you increase the probability of conversion in your marketing (and really, in everything in life). You can instantly download this free two-page PDF (instant download, no form fill or squeeze page) and print it out to hang in your office. The article also includes a deeper explanation to help you put this information into action.

On LinkedIn, our friend Max Marker said

“‘Stop viewing your funnel through the lens of the marketer and begin viewing it through the lens of the customer.’” 

This article provides a powerful framework that can be used to significantly increase the performance of your marketing funnel. 

#MECLABS #meclabsconversionheuristic #ConversionOptimization #DigitalMarketing”

READ NOW

 

Value Sequencing Decider Graphic: What do your customers need to know, and when do they need to know it?

This article offers a decision tree to help you understand how and where to communicate value to customers throughout the customer buying journey. Plus, the article includes free PNG and PDF downloads (instant download, no form fill or squeeze page) of the decider infographic.

On Twitter, Rebel Digital Marketing shared the article with a brain emoji and asked …

“What do your customers need to know to cheerfully buy? #ecommerce #digitalmarketing”

READ NOW

 

Plus, one more bonus article. After all, 2020 won’t just usher in a new year, it will bring an entirely new decade. So here is the article your peers found the most helpful from MarketingExperiments over the past decade (did this decade ever get a name? “The Teens” maybe?):

A/B Testing: Example of a good hypothesis

True A/B testing success takes more than just putting random good ideas in a splitter and seeing what comes out. By engaging in hypothesis-driven testing, you get results, but most importantly you learn more about the customer. That is business intelligence that can help throughout the organization.

This article gives you a simple framework for creating a marketing hypothesis.

On Twitter, Michael Aagaard said of the article: “This is the best piece I’ve read on Test Hypotheses”

READ NOW

Please note, while the above-mentioned article is helpful, it was published in 2013 and MECLABS Institute (parent organization of MarketingExperiments) has further innovated our A/B testing hypothesis methodology in that time. You can see that updated methodology in A/B Testing Summit Keynote: A 4-step framework for designing winning hypotheses that generate marketing results.

 

Related Resources

Mobile A/B Testing: Quality assurance checklist

Optimization Expert Flint McGlaughlin Rapidly Diagnoses Pages LIVE in Real-Time (Part 2)

Landing Page Optimization, Value Proposition, Online Testing, and Email Messaging on-demand courses from MECLABS Institute

 

The post Value Proposition, Web Design, and Wireframing: Your peers’ favorite MarketingExperiments articles and videos of 2019 appeared first on MarketingExperiments.



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What’s the One Skill that Separates Well-Paid Freelance Writers from Those Who Struggle?

Everyone loves the part of the hero’s journey where our protagonist accepts the “call to adventure” and “crosses the threshold”...

The post What’s the One Skill that Separates Well-Paid Freelance Writers from Those Who Struggle? appeared first on Copyblogger.



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CDP and DMP: What Is the Difference?

Customer Data Platforms (CDP) and Data Management Platforms (DMP) are two commonly used B2B marketing tools. They sound similar and are in some ways are the same. For example, both capture and organize data, use existing data, generate analysis and reports, create a single customer view, and work toward the aim of influencing the customer to buy. 

Yet, there are distinct differences between the platforms that you need to understand to optimize your B2B marketing results from both. 

Platform Purpose

The purpose of DMPs is to collect, categorize, and segment data from different sources. Advertisers and marketers can then use the segmented data to more effectively target their intended audience groups. Designed primarily as an advertiser platform, it’s a DMP that drives those product recommendations on websites for each visitor. 

Examples of how to use a DMP include leveraging audience data to identify any new customer segments and reach target audiences throughout various paid media channels. Another use case can involve using the data to personalize interactions.  

In contrast, the purpose of CDPs is to take data from an existing company customer database, website, app, and CRM to customize promotions and marketing content for existing customers. It’s an ideal solution for your remarketing efforts.   

Data Types and Targets

Both platforms handle first-party (direct from customer, CRM, or purchase transactions), second-party (data from other companies), and third-party data (multiple sources).

Despite these platforms collecting the same types of data, their targets differ. DMPs primarily pursue third-party data (cookies and segmented customer IDs) while CDPs focus on structured, semi-structured, and unstructured first-party data. When it comes to privacy and anonymity, DMP excels. 

User Profiles, Data Selection, and Data Capture

User profiles for DMPs segment and categorize customers tied to the lifespan of the cookie used to capture the anonymous data. Data selection involves several field values to collect the necessary data. 

Yet, as part of the field data, DMPs can gather important insights, including when a user visited a website, how long they spent there, and what type of information they read on the website. To get the most out of what DMPs do, a marketer needs to turn to analytics tools to extract more patterns. 

Choosing to avoid anonymous data, CDPs focus on specific data that identifies individual customers. An email address is one example of the type of customer identifiers used by CDPs.  

Data Storage

A DMP stores data in two places. Having two separate places for the data makes integration difficult. In contrast, a CDP stores data in one place. The primary benefits in having a single place for data include ease of integration, flexibility, and fast analysis. 

Marketing Strategy

With these differences, each platform can play a role in your marketing strategy. For example, DMPs are effective for digital channels and audience segmentation. 

CDPs are beneficial for social media websites, offline interactions, and insights into customer needs and purchase behavior. These platforms also inform your marketing strategy through access to historical data.  

Through this system that manages data, you’ll better understand customer needs and expectations based on their purchase behavior and past interactions with your brand.   Knowing When to Use or Choose a Data Platform 

Deciding on using a CDP or DMP comes down to understanding the aforementioned differences between the two platforms and determining how each platform achieves your marketing objectives. 

To determine which platform works for you or if you can use both, you need to know how you want to use your data. It’s also important to determine if you can dedicate enough resources to using one or more of these platforms to optimize their potential.

Complementary Platforms

A CDP and DMP can work together in certain situations. However, if you need third-party data for short-term customer leads and conversion, then you should select a DMP. If you are seeking long-term customer engagement that requires first-party data, then you should go with a CDP. Both platforms offer ways to enhance the experience you want to create with your audience, providing value and return for your investment.

Depending on the type of CDP, there are also opportunities to combine these platforms for other marketing opportunities. For example, you can use DMP data in real time to personalize the interaction with first-time site visitors to establish trust. Or, you can deepen your customer profiles with third-party data that a DMP delivers.  

                                                                                   

Interested in finding out what else a CDP can do for your marketing and how the power of customer data can change the game? See how to “Do More with Customer Data Platforms.”

Take a look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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