Menu

Marketing Strategy

Project Management Best Practices—Now With Alliteration!

by 11 Comments

Several types of Project Management exist… Traditional, Critical, Lean, Extreme—you name it. The field of project management has only “been around” since the late 1960’s (speaking of the 1960’s, did you see last week’s Mad Men themed blog?) and, as such, is still constantly being altered/bettered. Regardless of what type of project management works best for you and your company, there are some best practices and recommendations that can be adhered to across the board. (Note: “across the board” is only the first of many cliché phrases that I just can’t seem to stray from… you’ve been warned!).

Proactively Plan

No-one likes to put out fires—it’s a dangerous waste of precious water (water = time and money). Proactive planning is key to the successful completion of a project. A great place to start is with anticipating what might happen; use examples of similar projects from the past, research the background of what/who you’re working with to better understand the what-ifs, etc. Spending a small amount of time in the beginning of a project to plan for what might happen (even if it never ends up happening) is a much better use of time than trying to figure out how to fix a problem when it happens.

Clearly Communicate

Nothing eats your time like having to clarify what you meant when you said “x”. Clear communication is important not only for the time-saving factor, but also for ensuring that both your team and your clients are always in the know. I recommend crafting your communication and, depending on what it’s in reference to, having someone read it to make sure it a) makes sense, b) is to the point and c) is clear and concise. Depending on what field you work in, it may be useful to have a team member craft the communication (if perhaps you lack the subject matter expertise to meet the aforementioned criteria).

Balance Budgets

Many projects start off with beautifully balanced budgets—then the team starts logging hours, meetings are held, documents are submitted for approval—that’s when the balancing act begins. While it may seem tempting to balance individual project budgets at only the start and end of a project, it is truly a best practice to balance your budget on a monthly basis (especially for longer-term contracts). Pull up your project management software and see where you stand—how many hours do you have left for which parts of your project? Is something running a little too close to allotted hours for comfort? Schedule an internal meeting with the team to see how best to approach the situation. If necessary, clearly communicate (see what I did there?) with the client the situation to establish what your next steps will be.

Track Your Time

It is terribly easy to lose track of time when you’ve got thirty projects, 10+ people attached to each of those, and an always overflowing email inbox. Tracking your time not only helps you keep a balanced budget (oh, I did it again!) but also helps you make sure that you’re keeping up with keeping everyone else on task. I recommend scheduling specific time to approach each project on an individual basis as well as approaching all projects globally. The smaller time slots can be just for you to make sure you’ve got all of your bases covered, whereas the global time should be used to make sure your team is up-to-speed, on task, and ahead of deadlines.

Frequently Follow-Up

Frequent follow-up applies to everyone involved in your projects—clients, team members, contractors, etc. It makes sense to follow-up when you’re waiting on deliverables or are under a tight deadline, but you should also follow-up even if things are in a slower part of your project’s process. If you ever have the thought, “I haven’t spoken with so-and-so in awhile,” chances are so-and-so has had that thought too. I recommend regularly scheduled communication with everyone involved in your projects—again: clients, team, contractors, etc. Depending on the size and scope of your project, client communication should be either weekly or bi-weekly. Team communication should be at least weekly, but never fear scheduling internal meetings whenever truly necessary. The frequency of contractor follow-up is heavily reliant upon how in-depth they may be involved in a specific project. For the most part, though, they should be considered part of the team and followed up with as such. I hope these project management best practices recommendations have left you feeling entirely enlightened (or at least like we’re on the same page!).
Do you have other project management best practices that you couldn’t operate without? Share them in the comments section below!

Mad Men’s Don Draper on Digital Advertising

by Leave a Comment

As an addict of the AMC series “Mad Men,” I’ve been thinking about what Don Draper would say about my digital agency and today’s advertising industry. If you don’t know, Don Draper is the Creative Director and a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce ad agency in the show. The series is based on a 1960s New York advertising agency that fights for recognition in the industry as well as key players making their mark. Don Draper is a key character within the show that works to tell the story of the agency’s clientele.

I thought it would be interesting to put myself in Don Draper’s shoes to see what he would most likely say about the growing digital landscape as an ad man. Here’s what I came up with:

  • Agencies still need to present great ideas to clients. It could be a unique creative solution or technology, but it always starts with an idea that helps the client solve a problem.

  • It’s about storytelling in all formats: print, media, mobile, digital, PR, branding, and creative, but with more research and analytics geeks to deliver info for informed storytelling and engagement.

  • Storytelling doesn’t just apply to the marketing mix; it also applies to the reporting. Multiple data sources, tag management solutions, and data visualization are all part the story. The more information that you have on the customer or prospective customer’s story that manifests into actionable recommendations or insights, the better.

  • Creative is still important, but not without testing, measurement, and outcomes. Not just ad creative either, but creative in the sense of identifying solutions to client challenges. Think about digital & creative on the path toward creating a successful outcome.

  • Digital creates more opportunities, but someone still has to sell it! From more graphic designers that create banner ads to analysts that implement a tag management solution for attribution analysis. Our client’s don’t always see the value, so we need to sell the story along with the impact it will have on selling more products or services.

  • It’s a tough journey from creative, to messaging, to measuring outcomes. Without the right people and technology, it will be more like a nightmare.

  • It’s an opportunity to improve the marketing mix and turn data into insight. The March 2013 issue of Advertising Age brought this up in an article “Data, Data Everywhere, and not an Insight in Sight.” The bottom-line is that big data still needs to be customer-centric and segmented. You need to have some idea on what you plan to do with the data.

  • You need the right talent and you need to cultivate it. It took time for Peggy to become a Copy Chief! Many ad executives are looking for the next “Big-Data Draper,” but in today’s environment, that’s like looking for a unicorn. I think it’s more realistic to develop a team of creative analytics geeks that work well together than the “Big-Data Draper” approach.

  • Don’t just give customers/clients what they want, but recommend what they need with a story. Marketers have become obsessed with technology, but isn’t the idea to make more money from selling products and services?

  • Digital Advertisers & Analysts need to tell the public a better story on the usage of big data, tracking, and security! We’re collecting data to recommend products/services, we’re tracking to see what works so we can stop sending you bullshit, we’re securing the data based on existing industry standards, and we’re proactively looking for methods to save customers time and money while better servicing your needs.

While today’s digital advertising is growing, so is the need to provide creative digital solutions to clients. In my opinion, it starts with a team of good people with good ideas. Don’t let the technology control the outcome, but think about how to leverage technology or even expand its capabilities to achieve exactly what you want. Remember that what is standard technology today will be mediocre tomorrow, but storytelling and the need for creative solutions will be around for a life time.

Do you have a Draper-ism of your own when it comes to the digital advertising landscape? Let us know in the comments below!

How Email Marketing Can Generate Sales

by Leave a Comment

Email marketing plays a major role in any digital marketing strategy. According to a Forrester report, repeat customers tend to be more heavily influenced by email. Email allows you to reach out to customers, gain increased visibility with prospects, or share your latest news and promotions. When done correctly, email marketing platforms bring together a host of tools that drive more leads, sales, & revenue.

Build Awareness

Email marketing is more than just sending out a generic email and hoping that prospects read it and respond. In order to build awareness through email marketing, it is crucial that you send out email communications with your customized brand, look, and feel. Including your colors, logo, contact information, and social networks will help entice prospects to not only read but also click within your email communications. The integration of social media within your email communications will help you build awareness as well. Integrating social media will allow you to publish emails straight to your social networks after you send. It will also give your readers the option to share with their friends and followers which will expand your reach and visibility.

Increase Engagement

One of the best ways to increase engagement through email marketing is to segment your lists to target prospects with tailored content. Segmenting your lists will allow you to create the perfect message for your group of customers. Email testing, optimization, and response tracking will also help to increase the engagement of your email campaigns. There are several different components that you can test within your emails. These include: subject line, day of the week, time of day, layout of the email, etc. Testing, optimizing, and tracking will help you to identify and analyze what works best so that you can make improvements which will help increase engagement.

Automate Email Campaigns

Auto-responders are a great way to automate your email campaigns. Automation helps businesses drive revenue by converting more leads into customers. It will allow you to follow up and reach out automatically based on your readers’ actions or important dates, and gives you the ability to send more personalized messages with less time and hassle.

Summary

Email marketing can be a great way to reach out to customers and gain increased visibility with prospects. Following best practices and using everything at your disposal are crucial to a successful email marketing campaign. Using the tools explained above to build awareness, increase engagement, and automate your email campaigns will help you generate leads and gain more sales opportunities.

If you would like to learn more about how Email Marketing can help your business drive sales, please comment below or call us at 610-743-5602.

Top 5 Financial Services Marketing Tips

by 1 Comment

We do a lot of work with banks and credit unions because of previous relationship within these markets. The financial services marketing landscape has really changed over the past decade and it’s about to get a mobile face lift and whole lot more in 2013. Below are my top five recommendations for bank & credit union marketers:

Go Mobile

Invest in mobile banking and measure the effectiveness of mobile to generate leads as well as increase sales. According to a report by Adology, Mobile banking is having the biggest impact on routine banking activities: 64% of mobile banking users in the U.S. say that the future ability to use their smartphones or tablets to check account balances would be highly valued. This move has the potential to increase liability and risk for financial services institutions, so make sure it delivers value to your customers.

Incorporate Measurement

Measure all of your marketing campaigns and implement tag management solutions. With all of the marketing tactics that financial services use as well as third party application processing, tag management will help to simplify tagging and limit data collection challenges. Tag management boils down to this–one tag on your site for numerous solutions, such as affiliates, third party application, media buys, etc.

Test, Test, Test!

Test your marketing tactics, PLEASE! The cost of many tests can be justified and can help improve your institution’s online sales process. If you’re not testing, you might as well dump a portion of you marketing budget into the trash and set it on fire.

Tag Management for Financial Services Marketing

The best place to test is within the conversion process. Invest the time, money, and resources into conversion optimization. It will require you to bring your partners (third party vendors) to the table for discussions. Tag management solutions can also streamline required vulnerability testing within the application process.

Predictive Modeling for Applications & Quotes

Now that measuring all of your marketing tactics is on the agenda, you should consider attribution and predictive modeling. Attribution modeling will help you give credit to marketing tactics that most impact the conversion process, and predictive modeling will help you to forecast future sales and revenue.

Have your own financial services marketing tips to add? Let us hear them in the comments below!

The 5 W’s of Mobile Advertising

by 1 Comment

It’s safe to say that the “Mobile Marketing Revolution” is in full swing. To offer a bit of perspective, think about this: Mobile web usage is expected to surpass traditional Desktop Internet browsing by 2015. It’s clear–smartphones and tablets are on the fast-track to ubiquity, and a lot more marketers are starting to catch on and make moves. This week, we’re going to break down Mobile Advertising into its most basic elements.

Here’s the Who, What, When, Where, & Why of Mobile Advertising (your High School English teachers would be so proud!).

Who?

This one is pretty self-explanatory, but there’s nothing wrong with bringing in a little context. In just two years, 40% of American consumers will have a smartphone. That’s a big portion of the market, and that means that advertisers will have to take these devices into account when forming their latest and greatest marketing campaigns. Another thing to consider is the way consumers are using their devices. Now more than ever, mobile devices are becoming the go-to platform for eCommerce, managing finances, performing brand research, and more.

What?

When it comes to mobile advertising, there are many options that marketers will have to consider. Some big ones include mobile-optimized content, mobile-friendly websites, mobile application development, QR Codes, as well as the mobile paid search environment. It’s a lot to wrap one’s head around, and it’ll require research for those marketing teams that are planning to make the mobile transition soon. The numbers don’t lie though–Mobile Ad Spend in the US is projected to reach nearly $4 Billion by the end of this year.

When?

Studies and research have completely agreed on the rise of mobile devices in the future. Consumers are expected to devote more time to using mobile devices, spend more money on mobile apps, and complete more tasks and activities on the small screen. As devices and consumer behavior evolves, marketing teams will have to keep an eye on the trends, capitalize on what they can right now, and prepare for the advances the future will bring.

Where?

Where are these users spending their time? The era of using a smartphone just to check email is over. As these devices have become more sophisticated, average users have become far more comfortable using their smartphones and tablets to complete everyday tasks that were once confined to a Desktop. Shopping, doing research, connecting via Social Media, banking, searching, using brand-specific apps, and playing games–all of these offer big opportunities for a business to gain reach & visibility. Put simply, industry-specific possibilities abound for the mobile arena.

Why?

Time for the most important question of all: Is mobile marketing really worth it? Will it live up to the hype? Time will certainly tell, but the current data is hard to ignore. Mobile devices are fast-becoming the latest communication medium, both from a personal and business perspective. When it comes down to it, successful marketing starts with target audience’s behavior and values, and ends with creating a unique marketing message to match. Mobile devices are poised to be the most effective way to get the word out, and advertisers have begun their plans to explore this new technological frontier.

Have a burning question about your approach to Mobile Advertising? Leave us a comment below!

10 Business System Integrations for Better Marketing

by Leave a Comment

Everyone wants something for less, but as a business owner, you’re consistently trying to increase sales and improve profit margins. So, the question is: What are the most effective ways of achieving these goals? In my opinion, the integration of business systems or solutions is one of the most under-utilized elements toward achieving these goals. By integrating online business solutions, it allows your business and team to do less manual work while improving efficiencies and overall turnaround time.

Below is my list of top 10 online business solutions that should be integrated to put your business on the path to better sales turnaround time, identifying insights, and improving profit margins:

Web Analytics

Your web analytics solution needs to be implemented onto the entire website accurately. Many times I’ve noticed that prospects or clients have launched websites that do not incorporate tracking into their application, sales, or lead generation processes. In most cases, you should be okay with tracking into these areas as long as you’re not collecting personally-identifiable information. By tracking these areas, you’ll be able to identify opportunities to improve the process as well as your conversion rate (completion).

Search (SEO, PPC, & Onsite)

Search can be used to improve your conversion rate. A few of the easier elements to integrate are SEO, PPC, and Onsite search. An example would be to enable AdWords, Google Analytics, and Google Site Search; however, there are other solutions that have these capabilities as well (Adobe CQ, Search&Promote, and Search Center+). By integrating these solutions, it will give you insights into what keywords or search queries are most critical to the conversion process and cut costs on ineffective keywords.

CRM Solutions (Salesforce.com)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions are important for all business types, but not every business integrates their CRM with other solutions. This can lead to inefficiencies as well as negatively impact response times and reduce sales volume. Through CRM solution integration, your business can more easily connect account records, automatically import prospects or leads, and segment prospects into different groups. An example would be the integration of Salesforce.com with email marketing solutions.

Billing & Invoicing Solutions (QuickBooks)

You can manage customer and client accounts without juggling separate databases. By integrating with your billing and invoicing services, you can automatically add new customers to your email marketing audience or estimates with CRM solutions. Going this route significantly limits the possibilities for errors.

Email Marketing Solutions

Email Marketing Solutions’ integration capabilities continue to grow through APIs and login authentications. With some email marketing solutions, you have the ability to integrate web analytics, search, CRMs, billing solutions, and a lot more. This also gives you the ability to implement automatic responses and send notifications directly to your sales team.

Publishing Solutions (Drupal, WordPress, etc)

Many CMS’s (Content Management Systems) allow you to leverage plug-ins that make it easy to add signup forms to your website. If you’re already gathering new subscribers with an online form, there are opportunities to connect it to your email audience in order to easily gather new audience members with the tools you’re already using.

Shopping Carts

By integrating shopping carts with your website or email marketing solution, you can grow your audience right from your shopping cart. With eCommerce plug-ins or applications, your online customers can subscribe to your mailings with a single click during the checkout process. You can also sort your audience using information from their purchase history to send them the most impactful messages.

Events Management

With event management integration, you can better communicate with your event attendees. Connect email marketing solutions to your event management account to gather email subscribers from your events. This integration makes it easier to automatically add new attendees to your email audience and sort your audience by attendee information.

Testing Solution (T&T)

Every business should be testing things like content, landing page variations, email subject lines, etc. With testing solutions, you can evaluate the effectiveness of content, landing pages, ad copy, and more. This integration can be completed between your Content Management System and the testing solutions. It makes it easier to get the right message and design in front of the right customers or prospects.

Project Management

My team uses a project management solution to help organize projects, but I would recommend that marketing professionals as well as business owners consider integrating a project management solution into their processes. No more sending documents, waiting for status updates, or looking for meeting information. Many project management solutions are now cloud-based with applications to integrate with Outlook, QuickBooks, and more. Helping your team to stay on track, stay on budget, invoice accurately, and deliver on your brand promise.

Let me start by saying that this list is not all-inclusive, but it is a start. The truth of the matter is that clients, customers, and prospects demand more from your business. They demand solutions to their problems or ideas for improvements. Your business can deliver more with less if you effectively use online marketing solutions and integrate them to work together. So what’s that mean to your business? It could mean more satisfied customers, better prospecting, improved processes, cohesion among online business solutions, internal solutions, and better information that will increase your likelihood for increased sales and high profit margins. Once upon a time, a business owner or marketing professional would need an army to effectively manage all of these tasks but with applications, plug-ins, and CMS solutions, you can get away with one or two really good people to manage it all.

Have your own integration success story? Let us know in the comments section below!