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What Is a Marketing Approval Process? 4 Tips for Building One

MARCH 9, 2021

Do you suppose the Baja Men ever found out who let the dogs out? What ever became of the dogs? It’s good to have some sort of system with pets. Knowing when they were last fed and who fed them ensures they’re never over or underfed. If the Baja Men only had some sort of process and allocated tasks, then they wouldn’t have had to ask the question in the first place.

Dogs aside, processes are important to implement for many scenarios. G2 has 4 tips for building a marketing approval process so you’ll never have to ask, “Who needs to sign off? Who, who, who, who who?”

A great marketing approval process will track conception, design, feedback, revisions, and everything pertaining to a marketing or design asset up to the point of launch. It should easily track feedback from your own team members, clients, and other stakeholders.

Identify key review stages and stakeholders. Outline who will be involved in the process and at what stage their involvement will begin. Having everyone involved at every single stage may not be necessary and could stall the whole project. Also, it’s important to be intentional about how many times your process will pass through to external stakeholders.

Align content sharing and access with key approval stages. Now is the time to ensure that only those associated with stage 1 approval will see the assets at stage 1. You don’t want anyone to jump the gun since it will only complicate your process. Create a simple checklist for people associated with the stages to simply check whether or not they approve and provide any relevant notes.

Implement guardrails to prevent feedback creep. Creating a realistic timeline you can stick to will help keep the whole project on track. If you don’t set a deadline, then who knows when your project will ever finish up. Specify deadlines for each review stage. This allows everyone to see whose court the ball is in, and over time you’ll see where there may be bottlenecks in the process when deadlines go unmet.

Don’t miss the 4th tip.

6 Tips for More Targeted & Engaging PPC Campaigns

MARCH 8, 2021

The 1985 movie Clue is a cult classic today, but it wasn’t a box office hit back in the day. We admire the film for the marketing tactics they employed within the plot. I mean, how often does everyone on your party’s guest list actually show up to your party? (I hope we’re not the only ones with that problem.) Those invitations must have been masterfully personalized. Plus, the movie had alternate endings! Just like we employ different messages for different segments. Pretty cool.

Keeping with the theme, Search Engine Journal is here to clue you into more targeted & engaging PPC campaigns.

Begin With Research. Making assumptions is like walking on thin ice: it probably won’t work out so well. Research is a tried and true first step for many endeavors, especially PPC campaigns. Of course, you need to determine which keywords will be most effective for your purposes, but you’ll also need to know who your customers are, what their pain points are, what sorts of things they currently purchase within your industry, and more. Start by reviewing research from market leaders who have already done the legwork. If this sort of info is sparse, then conduct your own research via surveys or interviews.

Select Your Target Audience. This part is all about segmenting. It’s good to know your total addressable market, but you’ll want to dig deeper into the different segments to refine and tailor your messaging to better resonate with different groups. Trying to appeal to everyone at once will make for vague and generic messaging that doesn’t speak well to anybody. If you’ve ever seen The Bachelor, then you’ll know how important it is for contestants to get some 1:1 time with the bachelor rather than just getting to know him on group dates. Segmenting your audience gives you that quality 1:1 time.
Review Your Messaging. Know your value proposition in and out so you can craft your messaging around it. Use it to demonstrate how and why your product will benefit your audience. The ultimate goal is to tap into the emotional benefits customers will experience.

Keep on reading for 3 more tips.

How These 30 Companies are Celebrating Women’s History Month in 2021

MARCH 7, 2021

People should be a company’s most valuable asset. The mix of unique perspectives, skill sets, and backgrounds make for a business that can better understand and cater to its customers. During Women’s History Month, the focus is all about womens’ contributions in the workplace and society and how everyone can promote equality in all aspects of our lives. If you’re looking for a way to celebrate and support the cause, take a look at Power To Fly’s list of 30 companies celebrating Women’s History Month in 2021.

Moody’s. Moody’s is thinking beyond the month of March by launching a Gender and Finance Hub. This hub will include business offerings, leadership programs, and partnerships supporting gender equality. They will also host virtual events and activities across the globe to recognize the achievements of women and the societal and workplace struggles women face today.

Elastic. This organization is intent on ensuring equal pay and equal representation in hiring. After undergoing a voluntary audit of their pay discrepancies, they created an equal pay policy and vow to fill senior-level positions with women. During Women’s History Month, Elastic will amplify the voices of women in the organization through blog posts and promote volunteer opportunities to help empower women everywhere.

LogMeIn. This organization specializes in remote working software and applications and looks to shed light on the challenges women face in the new widespread flexible working environment. Internally, LogMeIn is taking a deep dive into its own practices and how they can remove barriers to growth for women within the company.

Bumble. As a women-led organization, this dating and social networking company is committed to maintaining equality within its ranks. Throughout the hiring process, they seek people from diverse backgrounds to support their commitment to equality. During March, Bumble encourages employees to support the #ChooseToChallenge campaign as a means of demonstrating a commitment to gender equality. Furthermore, they’ll feature guest speakers who will talk about why gender equality is necessary for the workplace and society.

See many more examples in the full article.

How Niche Communities Are Changing Online Conversations

MARCH 3, 2021

Life is about the journey, not the destination. Sure. But some things are about the destination. If you’re taking the subway to your favorite bar to meet with your best friends, then you probably want to get there ASAP. I mean, what does the subway have to offer besides a means of transport? Mysterious odors, pickpockets, and the not-so-occasional rat. But by all means, if it’s about the journey, then ride that train all night long.

Don’t get us wrong, we love the subway. It brings strangers together and allows us to steep in the knowledge that we’re not so different from each other. But we also love mozzarella sticks and catching up with friends. The subway is like your regular old Facebook feed and the bar with all your friends is the subreddit that speaks to a niche group. They both have their advantages, but today Neil Patel is outlining how niche communities are changing online conversations.

Niche Communities Encourage Meaningful Conversations. 45% of respondents in a Global Web Index Study said they were frustrated by bullying and offensive language on social media. These experiences lead people to pursue more comfortable settings that speak more to their interests and personal experiences.

Niche Communities Are More Personal Than Social Media. Specialized communities cater to the interests and needs of a relatively small group of people. Like-minded individuals can engage in a conversational depth that other forums outside the niche might not reach.
Niche Communities Allow You to Meet New People With Shared Interests. 20 years ago there was no way to connect with as many people as we can now. While you would be lucky back then to find a local group meeting twice a month to talk about how despicable Grandpa Joe is in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, now there are forums centering around this topic for people all over the world to connect.

Read on for more ways marketers can benefit from niche online communities.

5 Common Nonprofit Marketing Mistakes

MARCH 2, 2021

Mistakes are brutal teachers. Making a mistake is never pleasant, but once you’ve recovered you’ll be far less likely to make the mistake again. For example, imagine you keep a George Foreman grill on the floor next to your bed so you can wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. If you were ever to step on the scorching hot grill on your way out of bed, you would hopefully learn your lesson and realize your bizarre wake-up routine is a bad idea.

But rather than make our own mistakes, we all have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others. Today, Nonprofit Marketing Guide is covering 5 common nonprofit marketing mistakes so you’ll know what to avoid.

Not choosing and prioritizing. There’s only so much you can take on with the resources you have available. The tricky part is there is usually more work than you can get around to. For these reasons, it’s necessary to determine what can wait and what needs addressing now. Mastering the prioritization of tasks will get you much further than trying to juggle everything at once.

Relying on free services for mission-critical work. The notion that you get what you pay for still applies. Sure, you can manage smaller tasks with smaller tools, but bigger jobs will require bigger tools. Understand what you have to accomplish and be realistic about what level of expertise or what type of software you’ll need to invest in to make it happen.
Failing to see the individuals on your mailing list as people. Marketers need to know their audiences. People need relevant information and we have the ability to deliver relevant information. Whether it’s your email list or your social media followers, dive into basic demographics and start to define the personas that make up your audience.

Read on for more. And if you’re reading this on your phone right after waking up in bed, watch out for the grill beside you and enjoy the bacon!

How to Use Curiosity Gaps to Write Headlines People Must Click

MARCH 1, 2021

Curiosity killed the cat. Anyone with a cat will know the precarious situations these critters can work themselves into. For this reason, the phrase is fitting. But maybe it isn’t the cat’s curiosity that leads to its demise. What if it’s our curiosity? I mean, if you know the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, you can see how it might be Schrödinger’s own curiosity that killed the cat. He just had to look in the box…

We can hardly resist our own curiosity. It’s much of the reason clickbait is so dang effective. But remember, it’s only clickbait if you click it (by Schrödinger’s logic.) The takeaway here is you can spark curiosity to achieve better results with your content. To help you out, CoSchedule is breaking down how to use curiosity gaps to write headlines people must click.

So…what’s a curiosity gap? It’s the gap between what you do know and what you wish to know. Let’s dive into the key points to keep in mind when utilizing curiosity gaps.

Capture your reader’s curiosity. If they don’t care, then they won’t look at your content. You need to prompt genuine curiosity to effectively draw someone in.
Settle your reader’s curiosity. If you pose a question, you better have an answer for the reader. Anything less will be seen as a waste of time. Nobody likes their time wasted, so demonstrate your trustworthiness by providing an actual answer.
Be creative, but clear. Everything you write should be clear. If it’s confusing, then how can it possibly resonate with your audience? Creativity will allow you to write an effective hook that gets the gears turning in your reader’s mind.

Read on for more, but remember: Schrödinger’s CTA below is only linked out elsewhere if you click it. 🤷‍♀️

6 Competitor Insights You Can Get in 30 Minutes

FEBRUARY 28, 2021

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which is the best business of them all? While mirrors are great for literal self-reflection, you’re probably not going to find one that tells you how your business stacks up against competitors. Best case scenario, Bloody Mary has rebranded herself as a business consultant. The age-old chanting in front of a mirror in the dark may not be quite as exhilarating for the kids once they’re met with questions regarding current processes and long-term business goals.

So put that mirror down before you break it and bring years of bad luck upon yourself because SEMRush is telling us 6 competitor insights you can get in 30 minutes.

Who is Really Leading the Market?

Every business is different, but some standard benchmarks can help illustrate which businesses clearly have excellent growth strategies. Don’t just compare your business to the competitor with the most brand awareness or market share. Take a look at competitors closer to your level and focus on which one had the highest traffic in the past year and what kind of growth they experienced throughout.

What Hidden Seasonal Trends Might You Overlook?

Analyze seasonal trends in traffic across your industry and compare those trends to the trends of individual competitors. You might find that a competitor spends more toward the end of the year because the budget is about to reset. Think about what’s responsible for upticks in traffic besides typical trends and holidays.

Does Your Competitor Communicate With the Target Audience Better than You Do?

A company’s traffic doesn’t tell the full story. Looking under the hood at bounce rates and session durations will paint a clearer picture of performance. Quantity is important, but quality will always reign supreme. Break down bounce rate, average session duration, and number of site visits for your competitors, and take a look at how they stack up against each other. Does one seem to be the clear winner before looking deeper? This can also show you some benchmarks to measure your own performance against.

Read on for more competitor insights.

7 Emerging Technologies in SEO and Their Applications

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

Did y’all ever watch the Windows 95 launch? It was wild, but it was warranted. Sure, Windows 95 is antiquated now, but it was a game-changer when it launched. Steve Ballmer couldn’t contain himself and even Bill Gates busted a few moves on stage during the excitement at launch.

Great new technologies are worth celebrating. They make our lives easier by creating efficiencies we never had before. Get ready to do your own celebration dance because Moz is showing us 7 emerging technologies in SEO and their applications.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Google is on top of its game when it comes to delivering search results. While more often than not we get the answers we’re searching for, sometimes Google has trouble. Perhaps we’re just asking too confusing of questions. 🤷‍♀️ Google’s Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) algorithm is all about studying the intent of a query to deliver the most relevant result. Since marketers can’t optimize for BERT for the time being, the best practice is to continue publishing content that accurately addresses queries.

Natural Language Generation (NLG) for short-form content

Google has proven to be quite the wordsmith. Good thing it’s here to help with any writer’s block. Feeding a keyword or phrase into a natural language generator can deliver you useful headlines, blog outlines, meta descriptions, and much more. NLG won’t write your whole piece for you, but it could be the spark that helps you to dive right into your writing.

GPT-3 for automated content creation

While NLG is useful for outlining topics and coming up with short-form content, Generative Pre-Trained Transformer Number 3 (GPT-3) fills in the gaps. Last September, The Guardian posted an article written entirely by AI, and readers had no idea. With the wealth of knowledge across the web to reference, GPT-3 can write like a pro. Tools like OthersideAI will help you tailor email responses faster. While this technology may not nail your brand voice, it’ll leave you with an acceptable draft you can fine-tune to your brand standards.

Read on for more emerging technologies.

Facebook Retargeting Ads: The Best Strategies You May be Missing

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Some things have a way of working themselves into our daily lives. Smartphones are a notable example, and more recently we’ve seen somewhat of a bidet renaissance. Or how about face masks? A year ago you might just have seen a small handful of people wearing them in stores, but the number grew quickly before wearing the mask became a requirement for shoppers.

These things, for a variety of reasons, take hold and it becomes difficult to think of a future without them. They begin as something unfamiliar, but through the power of marketing and sheer exposure, they transform into necessities. It’s similar to the power of retargeting. See something enough and you’ll surely give it some consideration. AdEspresso is here to help you harness the power of retargeting with the best strategies you may be missing.

Creating a Non-Rushed Sales Funnel

We’re all eager to hit the ground running with Facebook Ads. However, it’s best to steadily build a presence with your target audience and spark interest over time. Run ads specifically for brand awareness and then you can dive into a retargeting campaign for those who interacted with your ad.

Showing Customers Items They Loved

When people have a need or interest in something, it may be only a matter of time before they buy. Serving ads for products you know people have already viewed on your site will help move people across the finish line. Create an audience of users who have viewed a specific URL, but exclude those who have visited the order confirmation page. This will help ensure you’re not targeting users who already purchased.

Re-Engaging Lost Customers

Selling to your customers is great since they already know your brand and some of your offerings. Find your long-lost customers who may be interested in a new offering and get them back in the funnel. Drill down in your email platform or CRM for customers who haven’t engaged in a while and target them with a special offer. You know, for old times’ sake.

Don’t miss the detailed explanations of how to implement these strategies in Facebook Ads Manager.