There’s no way around it – in the modern business world, companies need data from all areas of their business to keep up. One industry that hasn’t typically been at the forefront of the data revolution is customer support. However, with many businesses now realizing that support isn’t always a cost center (and can sometimes…

Summary Digital advertising is getting more expensive. The solution is to launch ad campaigns that move shoppers through the sales funnel. You can accomplish this with content ads — ads promoting blog posts and other website content instead of your products. Content ads can grow your site traffic and email list at a 90% lower…

When life gives you a wake-up call, the message is clear: Make a major change or die (metaphorically and sometimes literally). For Chris Tsakalakis, CEO of Vivino, the world’s largest online wine marketplace and the most downloaded wine app, his wake-up call came in a one-two punch. The first punch Tsakalakis is a successful and…

khamkhor / Pixabay Case studies are for closers. Blogs, e-books, and webinars certainly have their own place in your marketing strategy, but case studies—when done correctly—are the most effective type of content for converting your contacts into paying customers. Why are case studies are so powerful? In the decision stage of the Buyer’s Journey, your…

Software marketers spend lots of time and energy finding potential customers, driving them to their sites and encouraging them to convert to leads or free trials and eventually become paying customers. But once a person or account becomes a customer, there may be a steep learning curve. Users will not immediately know everything about your…

The 2019 Lexus LS 500 is the flagship of the Lexus lineup, this one being the model’s fifth generation. There are 3 choices to choose from the LS 500 is the base model, but you would hardly call it that, there’s also a hybrid Lexus 500h and a sporty Lexus LS F, available in rear…

World-class sales teams embrace competition and collaboration, which ultimately result in increased sales productivity and sales efficiency. “Competition makes us faster. Collaboration makes us better.” Competition is in our nature. We compete against other teams or individuals in sports, we compete with siblings for our parents’ attention, we compete with our peers for the best…

qimono / Pixabay The multiple layers of the marketing funnel can bring frustration to even the most seasoned of marketers. There are many chances for leads to fall through, but an equal number of opportunities for a sale to close. Since its fruition, there have been numerous variations of the classic marketing funnel — some…

markusspiske / Pixabay With more people than ever before turning to the Internet as a way to connect with others, blogs are becoming more popular. Many blog authors write as a way to educate other professionals in their field and meet like-minded thought leaders. Other writers curate their blogs simply to connect with people who…

We’ve passed a milestone in Google’s evolution from search engine to walled-garden. In June of 2019, for the first time, a majority of all browser-based searches on Google.com resulted in zero-clicks. Throughout this post, I’ll be using numbers from the clickstream data company, Jumpshot. They are, in my opinion, the best, most reliable source of…

The deck is stacked against luxury brands when it comes to the major eCommerce platforms. Amazon, Target and Walmart all have intricacies that make breaking through as a luxury brand difficult. Some of the challenges are structural with the platform themselves – but shifting consumer preferences also make success on the major eCommerce platforms difficult…

Brands that inspire a higher emotional intensity receive 3x as much word-of-mouth as less emotionally-connected brands. As the digital and social web gets louder and more crowded, marketers are always looking for new ways to better connect with their audiences and communities in a meaningful, authentic and memorable way. Branding strategies, brand storytelling and even…

Brand Trust is More Important Than Ever for Consumers Today’s consumers have more options than ever when it comes to choosing among a huge mix of hundreds of brands and thousands of products and services. In such a fiercely competitive environment, brand trust has become an important competitive differentiator. What makes a brand trust-worthy to…

stevepb / Pixabay Broadly speaking, a businesses’ risk can be grouped into three large categories – Operational Business Risk, Financial Business Risk, and Governmental Business Risk. This post will focus on operational business risk, and a future post will look at financial and governmental business risks. We can all agree that some business ventures are…