The Daily Carnage

The savvy marketer's hub for industry news, insights, resources, and culture.

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The Year of Slop

SEO bait, syrup sneakers, and more.

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To Podcast or Not to Podcast

MAY 22, 2019

You’re already sharp because you read the Daily Carnage.

If you wanna be even sharper, you should consider adding a podcast to your content strategy. Yep, we’re going there.

Here are 5 reasons to consider adding a podcast:

Competition is Low: For comparison sake, there are 80m Facebook business pages and only 700k podcasts. When you niche down, that number shrinks even more.
Easily Digestible: Podcasts require little effort on the listeners’ end. They can listen while they workout, drive to work, etc.
Mobile-Friendly: 69% of podcast listeners are on their phones. Wrap your head around that for a second. As we continue to shift to a mobile-first mentality, why not take advantage of mobile-friendly content (like a podcast)?
No Slowing Down: According to Statista data, there were 48m weekly podcast listeners in 2018. That’s expected to be 115m by 2021. Don’t wait to jump on the bandwagon.
Loyalty: Think about your favorite podcast at the moment. Have you checked out the host(s) on social media? Audiences have the ability to connect and engage like never before. Start now and establish a strong, loyal audience before it’s too late.

Must Have Elements for Your Welcome Email

MAY 21, 2019

We’re gonna go out on a limb here and guess you’re using email marketing in some form or fashion. Go you!

Today, we’re taking a look at how you’re welcoming new subscribers (aka subs).

Welcome emails are important, very important. So important that they garner an average open rate of 34% according to several studies.

Here are a few ways to make sure your welcome email is on point.

Timeliness: To combat short attention spans, send your welcome email out immediately after someone subscribes. Your email service provider (ESP) should have an automation feature that will send the welcome email automatically after someone subscribes.
A Clear Subject Line: To avoid confusion from the get-go, consider using the word ‘Welcome’ in your welcome email subject line.
Use Personalization: A reader is 26% more likely to open your email if you personalize it. Do this by capturing their first name on your email submission form.
Guide Your New Subscriber: If you’re successful in getting an open on your welcome email, it’s imperative to direct the reader on next steps. It could be as simple as linking to your best content or offering them a free ‘get started’ guide.
Ask For a Follow: Here’s an easy one. Include a link(s) to your social media channels.
Deliverability: Nothing worse than ending up in spam. Consider including a one-liner in your email that prompts the user to mark you as a ‘safe contact.’

7 Tips for Better Designed Ads

MAY 20, 2019

If you’ve been with us for a minute, you know that we feature a vintage ad in every email. It’s a crowd favorite for sure.

What makes some of the vintage ads so appealing and persuasive are the designs that accompany them.

If you want to persuade your audience, you need to guide their attention through great design to killer copy. Design and copy must work together like a well-oiled machine.

Here are 4 design tips for your next ad.

Use One Message Only: Sometimes, marketers try to cram multiple offerings into one ad. Don’t do that. Focus on one product or service only. Once you dial in your messaging, focus on the key benefits of said product or service.
Think Visual: We’re visual creatures. Our brains can comprehend visual information in 250 milliseconds. If you’re selling a complex product or service, think about breaking it down into a visual story that can be easily grasped.
Don’t Overlook Color: Color is BIG when it comes to ad design. Colors are used to evoke emotion and grab attention. Try to use 2-3 main colors in your ad, but more importantly understand the ‘why’ behind using them. Help Scout has a comprehensive on the psychology of color here.
What’s Your Type?: If your audience can’t read your message, they certainly won’t understand it. We’re not suggesting you take a class on visual hierarchy (knowledge is power though), but it’s important to understand the basics. Check out 99designs and the six principles of visual hierarchy here.

Don’t Do This With Your Title Tags

MAY 19, 2019

Here’s a short and sweet one for your Monday SEO tactic.

The folks at Search Engine Journal do a killer job with their ‘Ask an SEO’ section.

A recent question came through regarding title tags. Basically, a company was putting their company name in the back of the title tag of every page. As a result, it was never seen on the Search Engine Result Page. Yikes!

According to W3 Schools, the title tag (technically, the HTML title element):

Is required in all HTML documents and it defines the title of the document.
Defines a title in the browser toolbar.
Provides a title for the page when it is added to favorites.
Displays a title for the page in search-engine results.

Most SEO professionals agree that title tags should do the following:

Include a description of the content on the page.
Be relevant to the topic.
Be short enough to be readable in the search results.

Takeaway: Determine if your brand name provides any real value to the customer or the search. If it doesn’t, don’t include it in your title tag.

Is This Relevant?

MAY 14, 2019

Relevance Score.

Does it actually matter?

This came up in our Facebook Group, so we thought it’d be fitting to address it.

What is the Facebook relevance score?

A score based from 1 to 10 on how your ad is resonating with your audience.

Earlier this year, Facebook broke up the relevance score into 3 categories:

Quality Ranking
Engagement Rate Ranking
Conversion Rate Ranking

Why should you care about relevance rankings?

These metrics help you understand what your audience wants rather than just showing the success or failure of an ad.

Here’s a breakdown of each category and how you can optimize them:

-Quality Ranking: Think of this as you versus your competition. Facebook calculates this based on folks who have viewed or hidden your ad. To optimize your quality ranking, make sure you’re creating a fluid user experience. For example; completed landing pages, not using clickbait or engagement bait.

-Engagement Ranking: This metric tells you how likely your target audience is to react, comment or share. This is a great testing ground for your ad creative. As targeting and ad creative become more specific, you’ll likely see your engagement rank increase.

-Conversion Rate Ranking: This measures how likely a person is to convert, whether it’s an email submission, purchase, download, etc. Why it matters? This ranking comes down to your specific goals and strategy. It forces you to do a deep-dive into what’s actually working.

The new-ish relevance metrics are all about giving you better insight into your target audience. Facebook does a great job at breaking down how to use these metrics for better ads here.

How to Use Mailchimp’s Audience Dashboard

MAY 13, 2019

When he’s not working on the vision behind a new brand or project, our very own Creative Director, Rich enjoys writing an article or two.

In today’s tactic section, Rich breaks down how to use the Mailchimp audience dashboard.

Mailchimp is a robust platform for us marketers, but sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming.

Here are two features in Mailchimp we’re most excited about, why we love them, and how they can inspire your strategy:

-Email Marketing Engagement:

What is it?

Your subscribers’ level of engagement (frequency of opens and clicks) are broken down into three categories: Often, Sometimes, Rarely.

Why we love it?

Open and click rates tell you how individual campaigns are performing. On the other hand “Email Marketing Engagement” tells you how your audience is responding. In other words, this feature puts the focus on the people you’re communicating with not just the messages you are sending.

How can you use it? Go here.

-Likelihood to Purchase Again:

What is it?

This feature is for eligible paid accounts. Here you get a predictive model specific to your customers’ behavior. Subscribers are broken down into three categories based on their predicted likelihood to purchase again: High, Moderate, Low.

Why we love it?

Because we love machine learning, of course! (Well, we might change our minds when they become our robot overlords, but in the meantime…) The more likely a customer is to make multiple purchases, the greater their predicted lifetime value.

And, once again, these categories are instantly actionable right there on the dashboard.

How can you use it? Go here.

How to Approach Content for SEO

MAY 12, 2019

Today’s SEO Monday is a little different…

We’re chopping up a podcast with Viola Eva, Founder of SEO Strategy at Flow SEO. Viola was recently featured on the Search Engine Nerds podcast and dropped some serious knowledge.

How Viola approaches content creation for SEO:

Data-driven SEO and mindful marketing. Viola says that good content is content that is well-researched, provides value, solves a problem or satisfies a need.

Takeaway 1: Don’t forget to do your SEO homework.

Areas of content creation that Viola focuses on:

Viola takes a three-step approach when it comes to building sustainable content.

What you want to communicate
What people are searching for
What Google favors

Takeaway 2: It’s important to know your brand in and out. Having a brand voice, style guide and understanding who you’re creating content for is of the utmost importance.

How much should you be writing?

The game has changed with long-tail keywords. Viola recommends one page per keyword cluster.

Takeaway 3: Don’t compete with your own content.

On keyword research:

For young sites, Viola recommends ‘super long tail, super low difficulty’ keywords. Focus on search traffic and then keyword difficulty.

Takeaway 4: Study the heck out of page 1 on Google. You need to understand keyword difficulty and find the sweet spot with your content.

How Many Emails Are Too Many?

MAY 7, 2019

Here’s a short and sweet one for all you to B2B folks.

We’re assuming you’re no stranger to cold emails. It’s part of the job.

The first touch point typically results in crickets (aka no response). The real magic is in the follow-up. But, how many emails are too many?

The folks at Nutshell pieced together some interesting data on the importance of email communication and the magical follow-up.

Here it is:

Email marketing generates an ROI of $44 for every dollar spent.
Eight in 10 prospects prefer talking to sales reps over email.
However, at any given time, only 3% of your market is actively buying; 56% are not ready, while 40% are poised to begin.

The Follow-Up:

44% of salespeople give up after only one follow up.
Additionally, 92% of salespeople give up after four “no”s, but 80% of prospects say “no” four times before they say “yes”.
In high-growth organizations, sales teams make an average of 16 touches per prospect, within a 2-4 week span.

So, what’s the magic number for follow-up emails?

5 Emails! That’s certainly not set in stone and will vary based on your product or service, but 5 emails seem to be the standard. Unless you hear “NO,” we’re big fans of not giving up.

Create a Killer Landing Page

MAY 6, 2019

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

You’ve probably heard that one before. Well, the same logic applies to creating a killer landing page (kind of).

Before we get into creating landing pages, it’s important to assess your current landing pages to see what’s working. Today’s tool will help with that. 👇🏽

You need to look at your landing page as a product and a process. If you go into it with a ‘set it and forget it’ mentality, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Now to the optimization…

Make Your Offer Clear: You have less than 2 seconds to capture a visitors attention. Don’t confuse them with a bunch of jargon. Take a look at these examples of well-done landing pages.
Above the Fold: Above the fold refers to the point at which a user must scroll to see more information. You want your most important info above the fold on your landing page. Don’t confuse this with jamming a ton of information above the fold. Keep it simple with a headline, a brief sentence and a strong CTA (call-to-action).
Scarcity Sells: If you want your user to act fast, you’ll need to compel them with scarcity. Do this by using a limited-time discount, a limited quantity, and/or a countdown timer.

Check out more optimization strategies here.