This content was originally posted here.
Marketing has changed a lot over the recent years. Thanks to technology, marketing is no longer just about creativity. It is also about data and analytics. A robust marketer in our current time needs to be part artist, and part scientist. Take a look at the below infographic from Salesforce that breaks down “The Modern Marketer.”
![The Modern Marketer: Part Artist, Part Scientist [INFOGRAPHIC] image](https://jtfarrell.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/800wi.jpg)
Shutterstock — a familiar name to many creative professionals — released its 2018 Creative Trends Report recently, sharing insights on the design trends marketers need to know about in 2018.
Having a beautiful website is amazing, but sometimes it affects the overall speed of your website. This can be detrimental to the effectiveness of your website.
Skilled recently pulled together 12 case studies to show how speed affects user interactions on your website, and created this very helpful inforgraphic.
Take a look below and let me know what you think. I would be glad to help you analyze the speed of your current website and come up with a gameplan to speed it up! Just shoot me a note today.
Influenster recently surveyed nearly 8,500 YouTube users of all ages to learn about their viewing habits and interests, to get a better understanding of how Generation X, Y and Z audiences consume video content differently.
Adweek compiled the information into a very helpful infographic to help us understand the differences between these generations and their video consumption trends.
Take a look below and let me know if you would like help strategizing for the best video content to reach your demographic!
I am a sucker for YouTube. It is extremely easy to get ‘stuck’ watching video after video, and I fall for it all too often!
YouTube just announced in a blog post on Monday that they have hit a new record – 1 billion hours worth of video watched EVERY DAY on their platform! Let’s stop and think about that for a minute. 1 billion hours worth of video watched every single day. That would take over 114,000 years for one person to sit and watch non-stop.
This goes to show the popularity among consumers for video. According to HubSpot, during 2017, video will account for 74% of all web traffic.
Brands need to understand the importance and popularity of video. If video is not part of your routine content marketing strategy, it needs be to. Or else you will fall behind others who have it.
Shoot me a note below if you would like help learning how to build it into your content strategy.
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LinkedIn might not be your first thought when you think about marketing, but there are 467 million users on the network — and that number grows every year. This is a huge opportunity to reach a professional community through content sharing, sponsored content, messages, and campaigns.
I discovered the below infographic that the people at LinkedIn put together, and I thought you would find it valuable.
“Learn the best recipe for marketing ROI on LinkedIn, from the very people who live it every day.”
Some things you will discover:
I just finished reading another book by Seth Godin. All Marketers are Liars
. It was a great book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to sell a product or service.
The book dives into the reality of how marketing works, how marketers have used it to their advantage, and the true value behind being authentic with your marketing.
The reality is this: All marketers tell stories. The stories may or may not be true, BUT those stories impact the consumers buying decisions EVERY DAY. If your story is NOT true, and the truth eventually comes out, it will greatly impact your brand’s reputation. Now, some brand’s false stories will never be proven false, and that is sadly the truth.
This is the power of a story. A story shapes a belief about a brand. With an authentic story, you can literally change the world. A story can also penetrate a worldview, and once that happens, people in that worldview will share your brand with others.
The sad thing is that most brand’s do not think in terms of story. They think in terms of push marketing – how do we drive more interactions with our brands by pushing ourselves on them. Yet, they are unknowingly telling stories along the way, but probably not the stories they want to be telling.
Seth covered a lot in this short book. Grab your copy today and let me know what you think!
Below is my latest article, posted on sulastudios.com.
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As we talked about in our recent blog post, 2017 is right around the corner!
Sure, we still have a couple of months left of 2016, but let’s be honest, those are filled with holiday celebrations, vacations and time with family. Before we all know it, we will be counting down the seconds to the new year!
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, it is still October, but with all of the busy-ness of the remaining months of the year, it is important to start preparing now to kick off the new year with a bang.
January is a great month push your product or service hard, as many people do not properly plan for the holidays and time out of the office. Once they get back in the office in January, it takes a few weeks to ramp up their efforts to promote themselves or their products/services correctly.
If you begin preparing NOW, you can beat out your competition in early January!
[tweetthis]If you begin preparing NOW, you can beat out your competition in early January![/tweetthis]
What is your plan for the new year? What marketing strategies are you working on to hit January powerfully?
Do you have a new product or service you are rolling out?
Do you have new trainings or vlogs you need to capture?
As you are thinking through your strategies for January, do not forget video! Video is a great tool to help you raise awareness, promote new products/services, automate your systems, and reach prospective customers.
We would love to help you! Shoot us a note at hello@sulastudios.com, and we would love to setup some time in person over coffee/lunch, or over the phone to help you think through your strategies for the first of the year!
Don’t wait – it will be here before you know it. And, by planning now, you can rest peacefully during the holidays, as you know you are already well prepared for January.
– Justin Farrell
Many recent conversations I have partaken in revolve around inbound marketing and the differences between push (interruptive) marketing and pull (inbound) marketing. Out of those conversations, I have realized that people struggle to fully grasp inbound marketing, and often over complicate the process.
Attract your potential customers to your website by generating quality content that is of interest to them. We live in the world of information, and people constantly turn to the internet to get answers. By generating content that helps educate your potential customers, you are building a level of trust with them that will cause them to return to you over and over. Promote this content to them within social media and email marketing.
With traffic coming to your website due to your content generation, it is time to capture leads by offering premium content to your viewers. Premium content tends to be slightly more advanced than what you publicly offer on your blog, and can be in the form of ebooks, whitepapers, infographics, checksheets, or videos. Throughout your blog, implement calls-to-action that attract viewers to the premium content and drives them to landing pages, where the offer is given to the viewer in exchange for simple information. Once they complete the form, they are directed to a thank you page where they gain access to the premium content, and a new lead was input into your system. Congrats!
As time progresses, prospective customers in your system continue to interact with your content and digital marketing efforts. The more interaction that happens, the warmer the lead becomes. Oftentimes, a warm lead who has show continued interest in your company becomes an easy sell.
While gaining new customers is important, once someone becomes a customer does not mean the process is complete. It is now time to delight the customer and keep them happy. A happy customer means a loyal customer and a long relationship. Make sure to focus heavily on customer support and customer happiness. Evaluate every contact point with your company that a customer may have. Is it the best experience possible? If not, make it.
To learn more about inbound marketing, check out PayProMedia and HubSpot.
We’ve all experienced it. Answering your phone to an unknown voice trying to sell you on a product or service that you have zero interest in.
But wait, technology has advanced. Now, we have caller ID to scan the call before we even answer. Minutes after ignoring the call, we get a voicemail with the salesperson stating they will try back later. Sure enough, they keep calling and calling, and we keep getting more frustrated.
Cold calling has been a large sales tactic for many years. With call centers located all over the world, people are paid to sit and call unknown numbers and try to sell them on the latest and greatest.
While this technique was previously effective, it is quickly becoming a way of the past.
It has come time to forget cold calling, and start calling warm leads. With inbound marketing, generating content that people desire and find useful attracts potential customers to your website. Once there, draw them into premium content through landing pages and calls-to-action, while providing the premium content for some simple information in return. This lead generation technique starts to build a contact database of leads who have shown interest in your company.
As time progresses, and prospective customers continue to interact with your digital marketing, your leads become warmer and warmer, without even picking up the phone. When a prospective customer becomes a warm enough lead, it is then time to follow up with the lead via phone or email, but have a connection and starting point with that lead already. They know you. They know your company. They have shown interest in you.
Does it get better than that?
People are no longer frustrated at your brand because you kept annoying them with consistent phone calls, but rather, they reached out to you first because they need you.
Stop being interruptive, and start pulling.
To learn more about inbound marketing, check out PayProMedia and HubSpot.