Contacts and Content Series, Part 1: Building Your Contact Database
How Marketing Automation Works
Successful content marketing leaves you with a problem: More contacts to sort through and not enough information to do that confidently. This month, Chris Butler will provide an overview of marketing automation, from what it is and how it works, to specific techniques that will help you profile, score, and prioritize leads so that you can automate marketing programs that nurture them to sale...
Creating Effective Email Marketing Messages
Email marketing is critical to your web marketing strategy and should be used to drive leads to take action on your website. Are you giving your messages the attention they deserve to make sure that they are fufilling their role of nurturing leads and driving new business?
Forget the Fold, Focus on Your Content
"The Fold" is the unobtanium of web development and, with an increasing number of people accessing sites with mobile devices, becoming less relevant. Instead of succumbing to the siren call of "all our content needs to be above the fold!" you should be focusing on creating compelling content and arranging it in such a way that draws visitors deeper into your site.
In the Words of an Agency Partner
I was emailing recently with an agency partner and she, somewhat out of nowhere, decided to let me know how she felt about working with us and about the strategic choices we've made over the years. A long time ago we set a goal for ourselves to be the best (and best known) small agency web development partner in North America. If I were to craft an aspiational fictitious agency principal testimonial, it would have lookd a whole lot like this. Here's what she had to say...
UCDA Design Summit
Trent Dyrsmid of BrightIdeas.co Interviews Mark O’Brien
I was recently interviewed by Trent Dyrsmid of BrightIdeas.co. Trent's a great interviewer and we spent some time together talking about agency websites, positioning, content strategy, and the role of the conversion-focused website.
The Four Benchmarks for the Business-Generating Agency Website
Are you happy with your website?
If you're like most small agency principals (owners of agencies with fewer than 100 full time employees) I know the answer is probably no. The typical agency principal is typically unhappy with their site. But why is that, and what's the fix?
Getting the right message to the right people: Segmenting your lists
The ability to segment your database based on profile or actions is a powerful part of marketing automation. It will allow you to send much more targeted email messages to very specific audiences based on who they are and how they have engaged with you over time.
Cooking Up a Content Strategy: Recipe-Writing Instructions
I sometimes moonlight as a food writer, and it recently occurred to me (d’oh!) that formulating a really good content strategy is a lot like cooking or, more precisely, like developing a recipe. In both cases, you begin with a goal and a bit of educated guesswork, embark on a process of careful planning and trial and error, documenting and tweaking as you go, and come away with a tasty reward — as well as a blueprint for future success.