The Daily Carnage

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

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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.

Sell Tickets and Get Your Event Seen

MAY 5, 2019

Today’s SEO hot tip comes in the form of SEO for events.

If you’re in charge of events or the marketing of events on your team, it’s important to recognize the role SEO plays in audience awareness and visibility in search.

Before we dive into the tactics, let’s discuss where your event can actually show up in search.

The Event Pack: This is a search engine results page that is triggered by events based searches. For example; concerts, festivals, tickets, shows, etc. The Event Pack gives you the unique ability to rank in position one, which equivalates to a killer click-through rate.
The Google Event Carousel: This search engine result sits above the organic search results just like the ‘Event Pack.’ The main difference is the event carousel will send you to a new search results page. The ‘Event Pack’ sends you directly to the event page.

Ok, now the juicy part.

Use Event Schema: This will be the most important thing you do (talk about pressure). Event schema refers to markup code (semantic vocabulary) that you put on your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users. Here’s what you’ll need to have marked up for your event:
-Location
-Location Address
-Name of Event
-Start & End Date of Event
-Description
-Image
-Venue Name
-See more here
Use Keywords in Your Event Names: It’s important to research terms that trigger the ‘Event Pack.’ Let’s say you’re running a marketing conference in Pittsburgh on October 4th (ya, we are). You’ll need to know the behavior of the search engine. To do this, head over to Google and plug in a few different terms. To show up on the event pack, be sure to include the city of the event and the context. ie: Pittsburgh Marketing Conference. Easy, right?
Ticketing Marketplaces & Sites: Use a ticketing platform that is certified by Google. It’ll help you appeal to a wider audience and show up in broad event-related searches.

How to Get More Users to Share

MAY 1, 2019

When it comes to breaking through the ‘noise’ on social media, user-generated (UGC) content takes the cake.

Why?

It’s the most authentic form of content creation out there. Think about it…

No one is forcing your customer’s hand. They’re sharing your product because they want to. That’s a powerful thing.

From an engagement standpoint, UGC is huge. The more people who share, the better your posts will perform in the feed.

Enough about the why. Let’s talk about how to encourage your users to generate content.

Hold a competition: People love prizes. An easy way to fire up some UGC is to host a competition in which you offer a prize for the best photo featuring your product or service. Make sure to include some ground rules, such as; ‘To qualify, you must tag 3 friends.’
Hashtag: The hashtag game has changed a bit, but the premise remains the same; hashtags facilitate searches. Do some research on existing hashtags. Pick one that no one else is using and ask your audience to use it.
Backed by a cause: Doing good is good. What’s really good is when your brand can align with a social cause (aka cause marketing). Brand ethos matters to people, so whether you’re a big or small brand, think about ways to get your user base involved with a cause.
15-seconds of fame: If your customers know they can land on your website or other social channels, they might be more enticed to generate content. Make sure you’re re-sharing UGC on other channels outside of Instagram.

Master the Follow-Up

APRIL 30, 2019

Dear {Person},

Just following up on my last email. Would love to connect. Let me know a good time.

Thanks,

{Your Name}

Ah, the dreaded follow-up email. Let’s face it. We’ve all been there. A couple of days or even a week go by and crickets.

So, how do you nail the follow-up email?

Go back in time: Did your first email include a legitimate close? We’re not talking about a vauge one-liner stating “I’d love to connect,” or something along those lines. We’re talking about a close like this…”Are you free to talk on Friday at 1pm?” Takeaway: Always include a specific close.
Keep it fresh: As tempting as the copy and paste buttons are, stay away from them. Look at each email as a chance to try something new. From your subject line to your CTAs, treat each email differently.
Be chill: When you follow up too soon, you risk coming off as desperate. Don’t do that. Wait at least 1 week between your first email and your follow-up.
Say no to clickbait: We all want our emails to be opened and read, but clickbait for biz dev just ain’t cool. Don’t use subject lines like Re: Our call last week if you never had a call last week.
Don’t give up: If you sent 4 emails and haven’t heard anything, it could be time for a breather. By breather, we mean wait a few months and send a follow-up. Potential clients have different needs at different times. Be patient.

To Automate or Not…

APRIL 24, 2019

Love it or hate it, automation is here to stay.

For us marketers, it’s not a bad thing (until all of our jobs are taken by bots). 🤖 Let’s face it though, our jobs are safe for quite a while.🤞🏼

When we talk about the ‘Pros’ of automation, a few come to mind.

Time-savings
A/B testing abilities
A feedback loop between your sales and marketing team

Considering we’re ‘glass half-full’ kind of folks here at Carney, we’re gonna lean into the positives and discuss some ways to use automation.

Post Scheduling: We all know social media is a grind. It requires constant attention, strategic planning, and meticulous scheduling. Luckily, there are a ton of tools to use for scheduling purposes. Pro tip: plan out your social media posts at least 2 weeks in advance, so you aren’t making decisions on the fly.
Mention Tracking: There’s no need to waste time digging through search results looking for mentions of your brand. Why? Because Google Alerts is free and effortless to set up. Pro tip: Start using Google Alerts.
Ad Retargeting: We already know you’re using a Facebook pixel on your website 😉, so why not give folks an extra nudge to convert? Pro tip: Set up some retargeting ads to folks who are engaging with your site.

Dive in deeper to some automation tactics right here.

How to Increase Sales on Your Website

APRIL 23, 2019

If we took a poll on how to increase sales on your website, responses would likely vary.

Do you really wanna know what it’s all about though?

Conversion Rate Optimization aka CRO.

What the heck is CRO?

CRO is the process of increasing the number of websites visitors who take a desired action. It could be a sale, an email submission, etc. It really depends on how you define a conversion.

Alright, now you know what CRO is, let’s talk about calculating your conversion rate.

Divide the number of conversions on your webpage by the number of people who visited that page.

Example: If a user visited your site 3 times and converted once, your conversion rate would be 33.3%.

So, how do you optimize for conversion rates?

It’s all about the who, what and where.

The analytical approach will have you tracking your conversions (we like Google Analytics). You’ll be looking at data such as, where people are entering your site from, what devices they’re using, demographics, funnel abandonment and more.

The flip side would be a qualitative approach (aka the human method). You can do data-backed research all day, but sometimes you just gotta talk with your actual audience. Do this through surveys, user-testing, and cold outreach. Ask the tough questions about your product or service and prepare for some constructive criticism.

Whatever you do, don’t play the guessing game with CRO.

Get SMART

APRIL 22, 2019

We know you’re already smart because you’re reading The Daily Carnage. We’re talking about a different kind of smart today.

As marketers, we all know the importance of goal setting. If you’re not setting trackable goals, it’s really hard to go the distance and get buy-in from your team.

Enter SMART goals. SMART is an acronym that’ll help you achieve concrete targets over a certain period of time. SMART goals are accompanied by 5 characteristics.

Specific. Measurable. Attainable. Relevant. Time-Bound.

Now let’s see it in action.

Let’s say we’re running a sweet email marketing newsletter 😉 and we want to increase our subscribers by 50%, here’s how we’d set up our SMART goal.

Specific: We want to increase our email subscribers by 50% through Facebook advertising.

Measurable: Our goal is a 50% increase.

Attainable: On our first Facebook ad campaign, we saw a 20% increase in subscribers.

Relevant: By increasing the number of our email blog subscribers, our site will drive more traffic, our Facebook community will grow and we’ll create more brand awareness.

Time-Bound: In 4 months.

Alright, now go set up your own SMART goals and remember…

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

How to Use Headings on Your Site

APRIL 21, 2019

It’s the Monday after a holiday. We’re keeping this SEO Monday section short and sweet folks.

Why use headings?

They Serve as a Guide: Headings guide your reader through what’s important. Think of them like the Google Maps (Waze, etc.) of your article. They should ultimately make your article easier to read and understand.
Improve SEO: Most folks will agree that headings won’t directly impact your SEO. It’s all about the indirect benefits. For example…headings (when done right) will create easily readable text, which Google likes. Also, headings create an opportunity to feature your focus keywords.

How to use headings:

H1: Use only one H1 per page. This heading should be your article title. Think of it like the name of a book.
H2: These headings will introduce new sections. Think of H2’s like the chapters of a book.
H3: Use these to introduce subsections of your H2 headings.
H4: Rarely used unless you’re writing very technical posts or long-form posts.