MarketingMaven | IEEE GlobalSpec – The Industrial Supplier's Guide to Online Marketing Success

October 24, 2018

Email Needs to Align With Your Larger Marketing Goals

Amber Cooleen, IEEE GlobalSpec’s Senior Director of Audience Development, and Linda Uslaner, Senior Director, Product Management recently contributed to eMarketers latest report “Email Marketing StatPack 2018: Benchmarks and Trends.”

You can view the entire report here.

Emarketer Benchmarks Report

eMarketer’s Emali Marketing Statpack 2018: Benchmarks and Trends report features the latest data and trends for the email marketing landscape, as well as interviews from industry experts and brands.

The report tackles, among other topics, tips for managing email and aligning it with the holistic customer experience. Among their findings:

Email marketers top challenges include staffing and resource constraints, poor coordination between other departments and channels, and bad strategy or leadership.
Email has become part of the larger marketing team’s efforts
In-house markters worldwide dedicate the most time to email design and content, vs. transmission, reporting, or strategy and planning

You can view the entire report here.

E-Mail Marketing Marketing, General

October 24, 2018

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Producing Relevant Emails is Impossible Without Data

You can view the entire report here.

EMarketer StatPack 2018

The report tackles, among other topics, tips for crafting relevant messages with Data-driven strategies. Among their findings:

Relevant emails result in better performance and help marketers stand out in the inbox
82% of in-house marketers worldwide use basic segmentation in their email marketing strategy
Behavior-based triggers are a real-time way for marketers to send relevant emails
Advanced marketers are starting to experiment with dynamic email content

The entire report is availbale for download here.

E-Mail Marketing Marketing, General

October 18, 2018

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Programmatic Advertising: What You Need to Know

Programmatic advertising is a system of real-time automatic bidding on digital advertising inventory. It allows the advertiser the opportunity to show an ad, such as a banner, to a specific, targeted customer within a specific context.

The market for programmatic advertising has been almost breathtaking in its rate of growth. In a recent forecast, eMarketer estimated that almost four out of every five U.S. digital display dollars will transact through programmatic advertising. By the end of 2019, that share will rise to 84 percent.

B2B programmatic advertising is equally on the rise. According to a study conducted for Dun & Bradstreet, 63 percent of B2B marketers currently buy advertising programmatically and almost two-thirds said they plan to increase their spending on programmatic in 2018.

For an industrial marketer, B2B programmatic advertising can be especially effective when the target user comes from specialty sites (such as GlobalSpec.com). The users are identified by their cookies—without personal identification, of course—and can be recognized and addressed outside of the target site.

Before you dive in head first, make sure you’re familiar with how programmatic advertising works, as well as the benefits and potential challenges.

How Programmatic Advertising Works

Advertisers work with publishers to determine target groups and to bid for available advertising inventory.
A visitor arrives on a web page and the page publisher auctions off an ad impression.
Among advertisers who compete for that space, the one willing to bid the most wins.
A complex yet extremely efficient set of algorithms automates the bidding process and the display of ads.
The ad is delivered to the user in real time as the page loads.
The hoped-for outcome is the user clicking on the targeted ad and converting.

Benefits of Programmatic Advertising

Media buying is simple, cost-effective, and highly-targeted.
The human element of matching inventory to an advertiser’s stated target audience is removed from the equation. Instead, highly efficient automation handles the matching by leveraging real-time customer data and analytics.
Advertisers pay only for discrete impressions, rather than a package of impressions, based on their bid thresholds.
People can be better targeted because bids for advertising inventory are based on the user/visitor, not on the environment or websites. This increases the ability to target the right user at the right time in the right environment.

A Word of Caution

Advertisers love the convenience of buying media programmatically, but that doesn’t mean the programmatic space is free of challenges. You should be aware of the following:

Advertisers have less control over where their ads are placed, because programmatic advertising targets a specific user, not a specific website. Even when brands think they know where they’re running ads, they may not totally ever know. There have been several high-profile cases where brands have suffered after their ads were shown on sites considered inappropriate or offensive to certain groups.
Ads that are counted as seen by your target audience could have been registered by bots, reducing the actual occurrences of your ad reaching your audience.
Some agencies that buy ad inventory for their clients also own the programmatic platforms for ad bidding and delivery, causing a possible lack of transparency.

To avoid these potential pitfalls, make sure you work with a reputable media partner for programmatic advertising. Ask your media partner about their expertise in your sector, their ability to connect you to your target audience, and the makeup of their network of websites where your ads will appear.

For more information about programmatic marketing to reach engineers and technical professionals,

Marketing, General Programmatic Advertising

October 18, 2018October 18, 2018

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Why Video and Social Media Are a Perfect Match

Video is growing in use and importance among technical professionals of all ages. Fifty-nine percent use YouTube or other video sharing websites for work-related purposes, an increase of 18 percent from two years ago, according to the upcoming “2018 Social Media Use in the Industrial Sector” research report by IEEE GlobalSpec.

One of the best ways to gain attention for your videos is through social media. Social networks favor video in their algorithms, knowing that this rich content is preferred by their users. In addition, social media allows your audience to easily share your videos with their colleagues and friends.

Video on social media is also an excellent way to connect with the millennial engineer. More millennials than older engineers use social media for work-related purposes, and they are more likely to watch how-to videos/tutorials and training videos on YouTube or other video sharing websites.

According to Forbes, millennials will make up roughly 50 percent of the workforce in the United States by 2020 and 75 percent of the global workforce by 2030. It’s a market you can’t afford to miss out on.

Check out our best advice on how to incorporate video into your social media marketing strategy.

Tips for Incorporating Video into Social Media

Your target audience has a clearly demonstrated interest in how-to videos/tutorials, training videos, and product demos. How-to videos are among the most popular search queries on YouTube and they offer great value to your customers.
Not all how-to videos have to be long and detailed. You can publish short, 30-second product-tip clips as a great customer support option.
Each social media platform—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and others—has its own video features. Make sure you do your research first so you can optimize your videos for the channels that you use.
Broadcasting live on social media is a great way to connect with your audience. Live videos are all about authenticity and real-time engagement. A live video should feel like a conversation between you and the viewer.
Use video to give an inside look at your company and the people that work there. This not only cultivates the human side of your company and lets customers see some faces of the people they work with, but it also can serve as a recruiting tool if you show that your company is a great place to work.
Use video to tease other, more traditional digital content. Much like a movie trailer promotes an upcoming film, you can create a brief video to promote an upcoming webinar, a new whitepaper, a product launch and more.
Just like with copy, video needs to be engaging, interesting and unique. It also has to hold the viewer’s attention from beginning to end. Unlike a page of copy, users can’t skim a video in search of what’s of interest to them. It all has to be compelling, or they’ll stop watching.
When working with video, think in terms of storytelling. Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. The best stories have a hero and conflict. Make sure there is a plot. Tip: make your customers the heroes of your videos.
Use metrics to track the success of your social media video efforts. Some key metrics include number of views, length of view, drop off point, comments and social shares.
If you don’t have in-house resources, consider working with media partners to develop and market videos. Their expertise can save you time and money and help ensure your videos are appropriate and relevant to your audience.

The importance of the video/social media dynamic is just one of the key takeaways from the upcoming “2018 Social Media Use in the Industrial Sector” report. Stay tuned to find out which social media platforms your audience prefers, discover how engineers use social media for work-related purposes and get recommendations for incorporating social media into your marketing mix.

Marketing, General Social Media Video

October 18, 2018October 18, 2018

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5 Tips for Building Your Brand on Social Media

As reported in the upcoming “2018 Social Media Use in the Industrial Sector” survey by IEEE GlobalSpec, social media continues to be seen as an information resource for engineers and technical professionals. While it isn’t their primary destination for researching a work-related purchase, social media serves as a channel for engineers to access news, discover information about products and technologies, and to learn about suppliers.

At this point, most manufacturers have integrated social media into their overall marketing mix, although most may not know that the most effective use of social media is for branding and awareness. Brand-building is important in the industrial market—no one wants to do business with a company they’ve never heard of or one that might evoke a negative impression.

Follow these five best practices to build and maintain a strong brand and greater awareness through social media:

1. Share Appropriate Content

Social media is ideal for demonstrating thought leadership. You can do this by sharing your company’s perspective on industry issues that are important to your customer base.

Share a combination of articles from the media, your partners’ posts, and your own original content. Whenever you share content from others, always add your own point of view—that’s what shapes your brand.

For your own posts, focus on educating your audience, not selling to them. Whether you’re offering an article, white paper, video, webinar or other content, use the opportunity to polish your reputation as a trusted information resource. One of engineers’ biggest complaints about social media is that there is too much noise and not enough substance. Don’t add to that problem.

2. Add a Human Face

What really can capture the attention of your audience is getting an inside look at what goes on at your company. We’re not talking about divulging trade secrets, but instead showing customers the people they work with, the daily activities that go on and a peek into what life is like at your company.

Show your human side. You can even have a sense of humor (as long as it’s tasteful). People are what make your brand, so this tactic is like a free brand advertisement, without actually being an ad.

3. Create a Dialog

Social media is for connecting and networking with others – rather than just throwing messages out, have a conversation. You can do this by following your customers, partners, and prospects on social media. Comment on and share their posts; it’s a great way to build equity and extend your brand across the market.

Use a social media monitoring tool to be alerted about mentions of your brand. Always reply to any comments or questions on social media that are directed at your company, even the negative ones. Be polite and professional in your responses, no matter what someone might say about you. You can also use monitoring tools to track mentions of products, competitors and anything else you consider relevant to your business.

4. Follow Your Playbook

You should have a playbook that provides guidelines to all of your employees who post about your company on social media. The purpose of this document is to clearly convey high-level social media goals; flesh out details about which channels to participate in; provide clarity on who, how and when to respond, and define success metrics for reporting and program refinement.

The playbook can also offer guidance on what your team can and cannot share or say about your company on social media. This helps create a consistent voice for your company on social media and can elevate and protect your brand image.

5. Stick with It

A social media account that is out of date or hasn’t been updated with fresh posts or content in months can tarnish your brand. If a potential customer comes across your stagnant social media presence and sees that it has been neglected, they might very well wonder what else your company neglects.

Don’t try to be everywhere on social media. Just choose those platforms that work best for you and that you can manage within your marketing portfolio. The two most popular platforms for engineers and technical professionals are LinkedIn and Facebook, so a good idea might be to focus your resources there.

Would you like to know the other ways your customers and prospects use social media, and how you can better target your audience? The answer to those questions, as well as others, will be revealed in the upcoming 2018 Social Media Use in the Industrial Sector report. Stay tuned!

Marketing, General Social Media

September 20, 2018

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Eight Features Every Manufacturer’s Website Must Have

Most manufacturers deploy a multichannel marketing approach, and the one channel that remains at the top of their priority list is the company website. Your website was likely your first venture into digital marketing, and it’s the one place you can be sure every prospect visits to evaluate your company and offerings before making a purchase decision.

Without a website, you’re not in the game. And without a modern, high-performing website, you might be in the game, but you are most definitely losing out on potential business. To support your portfolio of marketing programs, promote a strong brand and compete for customers, make sure your website has these eight features.

1. Clear, Targeted Positioning

Your home page must clearly state who you are as a company, what you offer in way of products and services, and what kind of customer you are targeting. Some manufacturers make the mistake of going too “general” and trying to be all things to all people. Don’t be tempted to do this.

If a prospect lands on your home page and doesn’t immediately identify you as the kind of company that can meet their needs, they will click away and head to a competitor with more targeted positioning. If you want to draw them in, be clear, not all-encompassing.

2. Logical, Apparent Navigation

Customers and prospects come to your website to get something done: find products, discover helpful information, learn about your company and more. Create a clear navigational structure that can lead your audience to what they are trying to find. The key is to make things easy for your user.

Put navigation bars at the top. If you use drop-down menus, make sure they work in all browsers and environments. Repeat top-level navigation on the footer of every page to accommodate users who scroll down.

3. Landing Pages with Calls-to-Action and Conversion Forms

Your marketing efforts, such as banners, newsletter ads, social media posts, and search engine results should lead users to targeted landing pages on your website that reflect the message or offer that motivated them to click. Don’t send users to your home page.

A landing page should reinforce the offer you’ve made in your marketing—whether it’s a white paper, an article, a webinar, a demo or other—and include a simple conversion form to fill out if you are using gated content.

On conversion forms, ask only for the minimal information in order to start a dialog with a prospect. Usually, first and last name, company and email address are enough. You can fill in the rest of the information as you develop a relationship.

4. Optimized Web Pages

Search engine optimization (SEO) matters. Make sure that your page title and meta tags are appropriately filled out. Use alt-tags for every image. Use keywords in the text of web pages. Keep your page content fresh and up-to-date.

If you have a video that plays on a page, you can also provide a text script below, which provides another opportunity to include keywords. If possible, create easy and intuitive URLs for pages, which search engines prefer and are easier for users to copy and share.

5. Content, Content, Content

Having a lot of relevant, updated content is probably the most important aspect of a website. Not only do search engines favor it, but content is exactly what your visitors have come to your website to find.

Having trouble keeping up with content creation? Turn to your media partner for help. IEEE GlobalSpec provides turnkey content development from industry-leading subject matter experts. We handle everything for you—from content direction to writing, production and project management. Many types of content are available to meet your specific marketing needs, goals and objectives. Find out more here.

6. Testimonials and Case Studies

Speaking of content, don’t forget to showcase customer testimonials and case studies on your website. Prospects want to know what your customers have to say and who you are doing business with.

Possibilities include a web page listing your customers, video testimonials or in-depth case studies that follow the problem-solution-results model.

7. A Responsive Website Design

More and more visitors are using cell phones and tablets to access your website. Make sure your website has a responsive design that will ensure it renders well on the smaller screen of mobile devices. Otherwise, the text is too small, navigation gets buggy and users have to scroll in every direction to view a web page.

If you don’t have the budget or current architecture to create a responsive design for your entire site, pick a few key web pages and have them optimized for mobile devices.

8. Analytics

Every website needs an analytics package, whether it’s from Google or another provider. You can discover where visitors enter and leave your site, which pages are popular or not, how long users stay on a page, their navigation path through your website and much more. You need this data in order to implement changes that will continually improve your site and make it a winner in the marketplace.

Do you regularly invest time and resources into improving your website? Tell us how you plan to improve your website in 2019.

Marketing, General Web Sites – Design & Usability

September 20, 2018

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9 Quick Tips for Content Marketing with Limited Resources

A survey of Marketing Maven readers this summer reported that the biggest content marketing challenge industrial marketers are facing is a lack of resources – time, budget, and people. And yet, content marketing is nothing short of a mandate, with prospects demanding a steady stream of relevant content to help them make a purchasing decision.

If limited resources are putting a squeeze on your content marketing efforts, check out these nine helpful tips.

1. Optimize Two of Three Resources

Operating under scarcity is the reality. No one has all the time, budget or staff they need. But you might be able to optimize two out of three resources in your content marketing efforts. Decide what to prioritize based on your most important goals. For instance:

If you need content fast and at a cheap price, you’ll have to be ready to sacrifice some of the content quality that only staff hours can provide.
If you need high-quality content fast, be prepared to spend more.
If you need high quality content but have limited staff available, you’ll have to wait longer as other staff matters take precedence.

2. Be Smart about Outsourcing

Fifty-six percent of marketers don’t outsource any of their content production, but this can be a great way to save resources. Outsource your weak spots. If you don’t have the time, passion or expertise for writing, hire a freelance writer, and then allocate your time to providing direction and editing. Work with freelance designers if your own design team is backed up with other commitments. Outsource any content marketing services that you don’t use on a regular basis, but only when the need arises.

3. Repurpose Content Whenever Possible

Repurposing content from one format to another can help you gain significant efficiencies. It’s important when first developing a piece of content to consider all the ways in which you can repurpose it. Turning an article into a white paper or webinar is easier to do when you consider each format’s requirements at the beginning. Retrofitting is a more resource-intensive way to repurpose.

4. Use Free Social Media

LinkedIn, the most popular social media channel in the industrial sector, offers many opportunities to start and participate in discussions. Adding comments to relevant discussions started by others is a form of content marketing: you can educate and inform your audience under your brand name. Also, be sure to add content to your company’s profile page for greater exposure. Do the same on all your social media profiles.

5. Free Up Underperforming Resources

Take a close look at the performance of your marketing programs. Consider moving budget or people away from initiatives that are underperforming and into content marketing efforts.

6. Be Targeted When Paying for Content Promotion

Many industrial companies pay to have their content promoted, which can be a good strategy. Optimize your budget and efforts by working with media partners who can guarantee that your content will be seen by your target audience across a variety of channels.

7. Start an Internship Program

Colleges are teeming with talented, motivated, and intelligent young people who are digital-savvy. Take on an intern who can help with social media, design, writing and other production and distribution aspects of your content marketing strategy.

8. Use Marketing Automation

If at all possible, take advantage of the low-cost marketing automation solutions on the market today. They will help you keep much better track of content marketing campaigns, schedules, content distribution, and tracking. You will gain efficiencies and possibly save money.

9. Catch Up on Fundamentals

“Content Marketing for Industrial Marketers” provides solid advice on how you can get more from your content marketing efforts. It offers solutions to common content marketing challenges and recommendations on how you can benefit from content marketing. Download this complimentary report today.

Content Marketing Marketing Strategy Marketing, General Polls

September 20, 2018

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How Manufacturers Really Feel About Content Marketing

Content marketing has become an essential and effective marketing tactic for many manufacturers. It fits so perfectly with potential customers’ needs for reliable, relevant information through all phases of the buy cycle.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 86 percent of manufacturers now use content marketing, but only 22 percent would say their organizations are mature or sophisticated in their efforts.

The Marketing Maven also recently conducted a brief, five-question survey of its readers to ask how their organizations are handling content marketing. Here are some of the key findings:

The Success of Content Marketing

On average, manufacturers give themselves a success score of 2.95 out of 5 for their content marketing efforts. That’s not bad, but it’s not great, either.

The majority (64 percent) gave themselves a 3 or a 4. If you’re in this group, it means you’re likely finding some success in your efforts and are seeing positive results. There’s plenty of room for improvement, however, most likely in the “big three” areas of efficient content creation, more precise distribution, and improved tracking.

There’s nothing but improvement awaiting the 30 percent who scored themselves at 1 or 2. If you’re one of these low scorers, you likely need to regroup or accelerate your content marketing. Re-state your goals for content marketing. Get caught up on the latest strategy, tips, and tactics by reading “Content Marketing for Industrial Marketers.”

Types of Content Produced

Emails, videos, articles, and case studies are the top types of content that industrial marketers produce. Newsletters, white papers, and infographics are also popular. When producing content, marketers should try to find efficiencies by repurposing content from one format to another. For example, a how-to video that can also be made into an article.

Outsourcing Content Production

Fifty-six percent of marketers don’t outsource any of their content production. This majority is either incredibly self-reliant or they are taking on too much. Think about all of the heavy lifting involved in content production: generating ideas, writing, layout and design, editing and proofreading, landing pages and conversion forms, and more.

It’s hard to be an expert every step of the way. Plus, although you might think you’re saving money, there’s an opportunity cost involved. A good question to ask is whether outsourcing some production aspects could free up time and resources for other marketing responsibilities.

Paid Content Promotion

The majority of marketers (56 percent) use paid promotion methods with the goal of exposing their content to a larger audience. These methods might include newsletter advertisements, banner ads, and sponsored posts, among others.

The key is to only invest in promotional methods that do an effective job of reaching your specific target audience. When you work with media partners, make sure they have deep knowledge of your audience and how to get their attention. For those who aren’t using paid promotion, if you’re not getting the results or reach you expect from content marketing, you could begin experimenting with paid promotional methods through your media partners.

Greatest Content Marketing Challenge

Forty-one percent said that their greatest content marketing challenge is that they have too few resources (budget, time, staffing). That could be one reason that most industrial marketers are trying to do all the work themselves and not outsource content production, although that strategy definitely eats up a lot of time.

Twenty-eight percent said their greatest challenge was being unable to pinpoint how content marketing contributes to sales. Since most prospects will consume multiple pieces of content on their buying journey, it can be difficult to know what content works best and what doesn’t. This Marketing Maven article, “5 Tips for Measuring Marketing ROI,” can be of help.

One aspect of content marketing that industrial marketers have a firm control on is knowing what content resonates with their audience. Only 9 percent said it was their greatest content marketing challenge. Good job. There’s no substitute for having a keen understanding of the needs of your target audience.

Tell us – what challenges do you face when it comes to content marketing, and what do you have a good handle on?

Content Marketing Marketing, General

August 22, 2018September 4, 2018

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Multichannel Marketing: Are You Doing It Right?

Most industrial marketers have adopted a multichannel marketing strategy. They’ve realized it’s not enough to just have a website or to exhibit at a trade show every year to achieve their marketing goals.

These marketers have recognized and adapted to the three key trends that drive multichannel marketing:

Industrial professionals have many tools to choose from when sourcing products, requiring marketers to broaden and deepen their reach to engage prospects in ways that match their searching and sourcing preferences.
Engineers prefer to search independently and wait to contact vendors until later in their buy cycle, so suppliers must be seen early and often in the buy cycle to have a chance at the sale.
The internet has leveled the playing field and increased competition as more companies allocate more marketing dollars to various digital media channels.

The analyst firm Outsell reported that 63 percent of large companies and 17 percent of small companies used more than five tools in the marketing stack in 2017. In addition, according to “Trends in Industrial Marketing: How Manufacturers are Marketing Today”, 50 percent of marketers use a mix of push/ outbound (email, tradeshows) and pull/inbound marketing tactics (corporate website, online catalogs).

But multichannel marketing can be a complex undertaking, and blindly adding more channels to your marketing mix is not a viable strategy—and may in fact be a waste of resources. Follow these tips to ensure your company can successfully compete in a multichannel marketing environment:

Maintain consistency

Across all the channels you use, maintain a consistent presence and make sure your messages complement one another in order to reinforce your brand and value propositions. Use the same colors, brand imagery and fonts. Hone in on core messages and differentiators. If you start mixing messages or varying your look and feel, your audience can become confused. They might not know what your brand represents.

Don’t try to be everywhere

Multichannel doesn’t mean you need to be everywhere at once. That would be a futile strategy and blow away your budget. Instead, as you expand, start out small. Experiment. Use the channels that your customers use.

When researching a work-related purchase, the top three channels for technical professionals are search engines, online catalogs, and supplier websites. Those should be on every marketer’s list.

But in reality, your audience uses many other channels to keep up with the latest technologies, product news, companies and brands—all of which influence buying decisions. E-newsletters, industry sites, social media, webinars, email, in-person tradeshows, conferences, and industry publications are all important industry information sources for your customers. Try a few new channels in Q4 this year and see which ones work best for you.

Coordinate your team and resources

Make sure that your entire team, from employees to vendors to partners to agencies, are all on the same page in terms of strategy, messaging and responsibilities. It helps to have a single, secure location for storing, accessing and editing marketing assets. Content version control becomes essential when you are using the same or similar content across multiple channels.

Don’t forget to engage your sales team. They should be aware of, and on board with, every program and channel you have in place. They are the ones likely fielding inquiries from prospects who noticed your marketing.

Manage better with marketing automation

You can still manage, track and measure using spreadsheets, but the task is manual and will be cumbersome once you are juggling multiple channels and programs. If possible, use one of the low-cost marketing automation solutions on the market today. Marketing automation will help you keep much better track of campaigns and prospect activity through their buy cycle. Your overall marketing efforts will be much more efficient.

Prepare for more complex ROI measurement

Here’s another area where marketing automation can help. As prospects connect with your company through multiple channels, the influence of each of those channels on a purchase decision becomes harder to calculate. Some companies place too much emphasis on the first touch with a prospect, others on the “last click” before purchase.

The fact is that every touch contributes to a sale. To find out more about measuring marketing ROI, check out this Marketing Maven article from earlier this year: “Tips for Measuring Marketing ROI.”

Rely on trusted media partners

The right media partner, one with expertise in your industry and the ability to reach your target audience, can help you develop, execute and measure a multichannel marketing campaign that is specifically designed to meet your marketing goals.

Your partner can help you select the appropriate channels and optimize your marketing mix, so that your entire program runs in an efficient, coordinated fashion.

Marketing, General Multichannel Marketing

August 21, 2018August 28, 2018

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Five Tips for Growing Your Email Marketing List

How to repair your email list in the wake of GDPR.

Email remains one of the top marketing strategies for manufacturers. Ninety-five percent of manufacturers use email to distribute information for content marketing purposes, according to the 2018 Manufacturing Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America, conducted by the Content Marketing Institute in partnership with IEEE GlobalSpec.

Manufacturers also reported that email is the most effective format for content marketing, with their top three email types being event emails, promotional emails and newsletters.

Clearly, email in the industrial sector is a powerful marketing engine. But many marketers have stalled when it comes to growing their opt-in email marketing database. The implementation of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is designed to protect the data and privacy of anyone living in Europe, has made list-building that much more challenging.

If you’re looking for fresh ideas on how to grow a targeted, opt-in email marketing list using legal and ethical tactics, try these tips.

1. Lead with your best content offer

Enticing a targeted prospect to opt-in to your emails is a transaction: they provide you with their email address and give permission for you to email them, and in return you give something they find valuable.

That something of value should be the most compelling, relevant content you have. It could be a white paper, a how-to, a webinar, an ROI calculator, a product comparison—there are many possibilities. The key is that the value of your offer has to be so good and recognizable that your prospects are willing to opt-in to your email list.

2. Place your offer everywhere

That great content that you’re using as bait? Cast it across all your marketing channels. Make the offer clear on multiple pages of your website. Promote it on your social media channels. Add it to company directory pages on sites such as GlobalSpec. Tease it with banner ads. Make the offer at the end of a video.

You get the idea. You want your audience to be exposed to your offer and act upon it.

3. Direct people back to your website

All those channels where you’re promoting your content should lead back to a landing page on your website where you reinforce the offer and provide a form for the user to complete in order to access your content.

Keep your opt-in forms simple. It’s tempting to collect as much information on a user as possible right away, but adding too many fields to fill out will scare people off. Reduce the length of your forms to just two to three fields: name, email address, company. You can collect more information from them once you start a conversation.

4. Add share and forward buttons

Add links that allow users to share/forward your marketing emails and social media posts to their colleagues or others. Include calls-to-action in your emails that make sharing an obvious choice for recipients. If your content and message are compelling enough, you’ll find this to be an effective strategy for growing your list.

5. Work with media partners

A media partner with expertise in your industry and access to your target audience may have an email list rental product for email marketing purposes. This can help you greatly expand your reach to targeted prospects.

Make sure that the list is opt-in and that subscribers have agreed to receive relevant offers from the vendor’s network of partners. While you won’t actually get the list of email addresses, you can of course drive recipients to a landing page where they can convert and become prospects in your system as a part of your house list.

One tactic you should never use

Never buy an email list. A purchased list is one that you could import into your system and use as many times as you want, just as you would an organically developed house list. But the names on a purchased list have not given you permission to market to them. You run a much higher risk of being reported as a spammer by the recipients.

You can also run afoul of GDPR laws. This can permanently damage your sender reputation and cause legal issues. Also, these lists for sale are often poorly maintained and may have many bad email addresses that bounce.

The only legitimate way to build your email list is through opt-in tactics. Be a responsible email marketer and your targeted list should grow and perform well for you.

Marketing, General