6 Awesome MailChimp Automation Hacks – Lead Scored Emails, Pre-Filled Forms & More!

For the last couple of years, I have been running marketing automation campaigns for large corporations and multinational brands that want to take their marketing strategy to the next level. The work involves advanced clustering and segmentation, automated email flows, social media integration, lead management, and other push and pull mechanisms for personalizing the brand’s […]

Google Analytics Introduces Product Release Notes

Ever feel like you just can’t keep up with all the new features in Google Analytics? We hear you! To help you keep track of everything that’s going on, we’ve started publishing Release Notes in our product Help Center.

Release notes will be updated periodically and will have the most comprehensive list of new features or changes to the Google Analytics product. So, if you see something new in your account and have questions, we recommend starting here. We’ll point you to the relevant documentation to get you up to speed on everything you need to know.

We're happy to be adding another resources to keep our users informed. Check it out today!

Posted by Louis Gray, Analytics Advocate

Does Your Content Marketing Need a DAM Makeover? [Infographic]

Successful content marketers manage their digital assets as carefully and intelligently as they would manage their money. Do you? Read the full article at MarketingProfs

12 Tools to Help You Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Results

Strategy gives you direction, but tools help you get there quicker, says Ian Cleary, founder, RazorSocial at Social Media Marketing World. Once you have a strategy, then you need tools to help you save time and provide value. Twenty-six percent of marketers spend 6-10 hours a week on social media. Let’s explore twelve possible problems [...]

Timing Is Everything in Nurture Marketing

Like many things in life, timing is essential to a successful nurture marketing program.

How Big Brands Measure and Communicate Social Media Success

We have all struggled with what to measure to show how our social media program is performing. Additionally, how do you best communicate the results to executives, managers and other stakeholders? At the Social Media Marketing World conference, experts from Discover Financial Services, Tyson Foods and Intel Corporation reviewed tactics for showcasing their successes. Steps [...]

How Onnit Can Use KISSmetrics to Drive Their Growth

Launched in 2010, Onnit is a fast-growing company that sells nutritional supplements, food, and fitness products. Most products Onnit sells are their own private label, while a few are from third-party sellers. Many of Onnit’s products are consumables, meaning that customers need to reorder on a regular basis. Therefore, the key to Onnit’s success and […]

4 Steps to Achieving Initial Email Marketing Success

Learn how to create a marketing powerhouse by utilizing sign up forms, emails and social media messages together

The post 4 Steps to Achieving Initial Email Marketing Success appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.

How Content Marketers Can Tell Better, More Strategic Stories

As a marketer, are you a good storyteller? Do you have a content marketing strategy that guides your storytelling? Maybe you already know how to build a content marketing strategy, but you’re curious to know how to improve it. Jason Miller, senior manager of content marketing for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, is a natural storyteller – and he [...]

Creating the Perfect Email/Digital Marketing Program for Your Organization Part 2

In part two of this look at how to create the ideal program for your brand, it's time to prioritize your wish list.

Direct from the Source: What a value proposition is, what it isn’t and the 5 questions it must answer

Learn from Michael Lanning, who coined the term "value proposition," what a value prop is, what it isn't and five questions that every value prop must answer.

Driving SaaS Growth With Customer Success

A business cannot survive without loyal customers. SaaS companies depend on recurring customers. Ecommerce companies need repeat purchase customers. Consumer internet companies need visitors to keep coming back on a routine basis. Happy customers are loyal customers. That’s why within many SaaS companies there is a department for customer success. It’s more than a support […]

5 Product-Selling Email Subject Line Tips for Retailers

Motivate customers to buy with these 5 product-selling focused subject line tips

The post 5 Product-Selling Email Subject Line Tips for Retailers appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.

10 Ways to Improve Shopping Cart Conversions

After your website visitors arrive at your online shopping cart, it's simply a shame if your cart then fails you by not helping you achieve the conversion. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

How Millennials Consume News

Some 82% of millennials say they get at least half of their news from online sources, according to a recent report from the Media Insight Project. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

Online Marketing News: Facebook Flashbacks, Twitter Rides The Carousel, Google Finds Half The Web Is Broken

The Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media for SMEs [INFOGRAPHIC] - For those that want to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to the opportunities that social media presents for connecting with consumers, it’s important to realize the importance of social media etiquette; that is, the dos and don’ts of running and managing social [...]

6 Tips for Creating Compelling Email Subject Lines

Our email pros share 6 tips to crafting subject lines that get your emails opened and read

The post 6 Tips for Creating Compelling Email Subject Lines appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.

Is Your On-Hold Audio Irritating Customers? Three Don'ts and Five Do's

Being on hold on the phone is probably one of the most attention-focused customer touchpoints there is. It can have a huge impact on how your customers feel about your brand. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

15 Google Analytics Tips to Speed Up Your Website Data Analysis & Optimization

Would you like to achieve more in less time and with less effort? The success of any online business depends on how quickly it can turn insights into action. This is true for data analysis as well. The good news is that you are about to learn 15 actionable tips you can use with Google […]

5 Cheap and Cheerful Ways to Promote Your Retail Business

Big on ideas but short on budget? We've got 5 cheap and cheerful ways to promote your retail business

The post 5 Cheap and Cheerful Ways to Promote Your Retail Business appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.

Social Media Marketing World 2015 – What We’re Looking Forward to Most #SMMW15

by Debbie Friez & Brooke Furry of TopRank Online Marketing One of the best ways to succeed in social media marketing is to not be afraid to test and fail. The landscape is ever changing, and as marketers, we need to adapt quickly and learn from others. Social Media Marketing World (#SMMW15) this week in [...]

Mobile Marketing: What a 34% increase in conversion rate can teach you about optimizing for video

As a medium, video delivers information customers want about businesses on quickly and inexpensively, thanks to ever-evolving technology. But how does video compare when it comes to delivering a dynamic customer experience in a world increasingly connected across multiple devices? Read on to learn more about how a tourism commission seeking to enhance visitor interaction with website content tested into a 34% lift in leads.

How Copywriting Can Build Your Brand Authority

When you're recognized as a brand authority, you become the go-to business in your industry, you can be more selective with clients, and you can charge higher rates that reflect your expertise. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

Are You Smart Enough to Test Your Own Subject Lines?

Although the email industry has been resistant to automation, machine learning may be better at testing subject lines than a human marketer could ever be.

5 Steps to Personalize Repurposed Content for Your Target Audience #SMMW15

Repurposing content is most often a function of efficiency. Marketers investing in content have always sought to extend the value of their content marketing efforts by repurposing, re-skinning or reimagining content into alternative forms. In fact, repurposing is so popular, there are over 1 million search results in Google for “repurpose content”. And for good reason: [...]

How to Nurture Your Leads With Narrative [Infographic]

Want to accelerate the process of turning leads into customers? Consider using a strategically timed story. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

5 Unconventional Ways to Create Videos That Engage Facebook Fans

Facebook is putting more emphasis on video creation. Learn how you can create video to engage your audience

The post 5 Unconventional Ways to Create Videos That Engage Facebook Fans appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.

Email Tales From the Trenches

Two savvy email marketers share some of the tips, tricks, and war stories that come with the territory.

How "Automated Personalization" Is Curing Our Creativity Crisis

How can automated personalization improve the placement of your content marketing and ultimately increase conversions?

How to Develop “Strategy” In B2B Content Marketing

If you’re judging by the title, this could be one heck of a scary article to read. Scary, long, and way too complicated. You don’t have time for this, do you? I’m going to go ahead and tell you the point of this article, so you know upfront what I’m trying to accomplish, and why […]

Winning With Authority Rainmaker – 15 Marketing Influencers Define Authority for Marketing Success

“I fight authority and authority always wins” So says the song by John Mellencamp. In the digital marketing world, why fight authority when you can become authoritative yourself? Today there are more tools and resources than ever for individuals, startups and even nimble divisions within large organizations to become an authority in their industry. In the context of [...]

12 Time-Saving Tools for Administrative Tasks

Are administrative tasks eating up your time? Try these 12 time-saving tools to get back on track

The post 12 Time-Saving Tools for Administrative Tasks appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.

Planning Against an Email Strategy

How can email marketers actually plan against the successful implementation of channel strategies?

59% of B2B Fortune 500 Companies Use Marketing Automation

The world's biggest companies are beginning more and more to see the value of marketing automation systems. Why is the adoption rate growing so quickly?

Value Prop: How Radio Shack lost its way by losing sight of its ideal customer, Pt. 3

In this part three of a MarketingExperiments Blog series, learn more about how the value proposition of Radio Shack looked at the decline of the company when it began diluting its value prop rather than refining its strengths. Read on to find out more about how Radio Shack mishandled a comparative advantage and what you can learn from its experience to improve your own value prop.

Leveraging Entertainment Events: No Longer Just a Job for Social Media

To connect with consumers, brands must react in real time to current events. Social media is no longer the only space for this - and marketing automation can help.

Double Opt-In: Then, Now, and When It’s a Best Practice

What's the argument for using a double opt-in email marketing campaign as opposed to a single opt-in one? Read on to find out.

Top 5 CMO Mistakes & How to Avoid Them (The Mistakes, Not the CMOs)

Introducing the 5 most difficult jobs in America, according to Career Overview: Coal Mining President of the United States Alaskan Crab Fishing Mercenary Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Confession: I may have bumped up CMO a few spots. OK, a few hundred spots, but that job is darn hard. (I’m blending CMO and Director of Marketing […]

Why a Sign up Form Is a No-Brainer for Email List Growth

If you're using an email sign up form for the first time, or you’ve been using one forever (good for you!), make sure you follow these three golden rules for every sign up form

The post Why a Sign up Form Is a No-Brainer for Email List Growth appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.

#SocialSkim: SXSW Reveals What's Next in Social, Plus 10 More Stories in This Week's Roundup

SXSW happened this week, offering up a deluge of what's next in social. Get the scoop on Meerkat and on Tinder's epic SXSW score. Also: how Snapchat affects Millennials, Facebook's peer-to-peer payments, and what Twitter is up to. Skim to stay current. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

Creating the Perfect Email/Digital Marketing Program for Your Organization

If money and time weren't issues, what kind of digital marketing program would you create for your brand?

Build a loyal user base with three new Mobile App Analytics reports

Successful developers understand that in order to have a popular app, focusing on retaining a loyal user base is just as important as driving new installs. Today at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, we introduced new reports that will help you measure how to do this in two meaningful ways. We’re happy to announce that Mobile App Analytics will now let you understand how users come back to your app day after day, and provide the rich insights you need in order to measure their value over time. Let’s take a look at how these new reports can help make your app a hit.

Active Users

The active user report displays your 1-day, 7-day, 14-day and 30-day trailing active users next to each other in one, easy-to-view dashboard. The new overview gives immediate insights into how users interact with your app over time, along with dropoff rate comparisons. With this report, an app download is only the beginning of a potentially valuable relationship with your new users.

Benchmark active users at 1-7-14-30 days by selecting the segments you want. (Click to enlarge image)

While these metrics help you monitor your active user trends, when put into context they can answer important questions about your user acquisition strategies. For example, if you are investing in different campaigns, you can compare the cost of retaining users acquired via paid traffic versus organic to understand if you are attracting the right type of users. Not only can you measure your cost effectiveness, but you can also continue to monitor whether or not the users you paid for are still coming back after the campaign is over. This is particularly important when trying to keep your loyal user base engaged and happy with your app.

Lior Romano, Founder and CEO of Gentoo Labs (the makers of Contacts+ for iOS and Android), was one of the first customers to try out this new report during our beta test period. He found the Active Users report especially useful when managing and organizing all their information at-a-glance: “We love the new Google Analytics Active Users feature -- it's a real time-saver! We get a quick overview of the 1/7/14/30-day active user trends side by side in a snap, which helps us to easily track our main metrics.”

Cohort Analysis

After learning how many users have opened your app, the next step in driving engagement is understanding when they come back. Cohort Analysis is a user analysis technique that allows you to analyze and compare your users by looking at their customer journey. Using Cohort Analysis, you can see when users are coming back to your app and their behavior over time after the day of the first session, and lets you further filter the information by day, week or month. We’ve also added the ability to compare different segments of users based on the day of the first install.

In order to validate your user acquisition strategies, Cohort analysis lets you compare different periods or campaigns. For example, you can compare different weeks or months to measure the retention effectiveness of a single channel to see if you continue to attract valuable users throughout a campaign. The flexibility of the report also allows you to see how much time users are spending in an app as they come back day after day. With these valuable insights, Mobile App Analytics users can tailor their acquisition campaigns or app experience, just as our partner E-Nor did: “Cohort analysis in GA made it easy for E-Nor to gauge the effectiveness of lead nurturing efforts during an app free-trial promotion campaign. The analysis clearly showed that many users responded well to email and in-app reminders, resulting in over 50% retention between the 3rd and 5th day post sign-up as opposed to 30% in the first and 2nd day.”

See at a glimpse when users are coming back to your app. (Click to enlarge image)

Lifetime Value

Analyzing retention is a great way to ensure users stick with your app and come back day after day. With Lifetime Value reporting, you’ll get a full picture of these users’ value over time. To get the most out of this report, it’s important to start with a clear definition of what a user’s value means to you based on your business objectives. Once you’ve defined the value, you can access the report to measure certain variables such as revenue per user and number of screen views per user over a period of 90 days. For example, if the goal of your app is to get users to purchase virtual or material goods, you’ll want to use this report to get a clear view of when they make a purchase and how much they are spending in your app over time.

Lifetime Value is a key metric to use to measure the effectiveness of your acquisition campaigns. If your cost to acquire a new user is higher than the average value over time, you might want to optimize your campaigns to meet the lifetime revenue they generate. Lifetime Value is particularly valuable if you offer in-app purchases, but it can be applied to discovering many other useful insights, such as number of times they open your app, total number of screens and goal completions.

Session duration per users compared to goal completion over a 60 day window. (Click to enlarge image)

How to get started

Cohort Analysis report can be found under the ‘Audience’ section in your Google Analytics account, and is now available in beta. Lifetime Value and Active Users reports are coming soon to all Analytics accounts.

To get started login into your Analytics account and look for the new reports under the Audience section.

Posted by Gene Chan and Rahul Oak on behalf of the Google Analytics Team

Value Prop: How Radio Shack lost its way by losing sight of its ideal customer, Pt. 2

This part two of a three-part blog series covering the value proposition of Radio Shack takes a look at how the company addressed the four key principles of a strong value prop: credibility, clarity, exclusivity and appeal; and where it fell short, leading to an eventual decline.

Protect Your Brand: Push Your Product, Not the Promotion

Brand promotion through email marketing is a crucial tool for customer acquisition and engagement. Many businesses waste precious effort and resources because they don’t plan their brand promotion properly. Traditionally, retailers have been able to just post huge signs and distribute flyers making consumers aware of the sale in the back. Their storefronts could remain […]

An SEO’s Advice: the importance of fixing outbound links

This is a guest post by Michael Martinez. As Bing and Google rule out more beloved link building strategies, marketers increasingly turn to supposedly “safe” strategies like broken link replacement (a form of “link reclamation”).  I’m not convinced this is as safe a link building strategy as its proponents want to believe, but so far the […]

Online Marketing News: YouTube Does A 360, Facebook Sets New Standards, Mobile Search Spend Soars

STUDY: Different Engagement for Different Types of Content on Facebook - Do different types of content on Facebook lead to different types of engagement? Social media news aggregator NewsWhip has the answer. NewsWhip Facebook’s Mobile Numbers Soar After Dark Social Cleanup - Bitly data shows Facebook had a 30% increase in mobile referral traffic in the Q4 [...]