By Kim Jarrett

Marketing technology tools are important as professionals juggle a long list of tasks every day. Remember when Facebook was the only social media tool in the box? Now social media marketers work with Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and many others. Marketing professionals who work with an agency or small company often find themselves in charge of blogging and email marketing, as well. And don’t forget all the marketing efforts must be analyzed to see what is working and what you may need to tweak.

Thankfully, marketing technology is continuing to introduce new tools to help marketers and business owners use their time wisely. No, an app or program has not been invented that will stop you from getting too caught up in Facebook drama when all you really wanted to do was post a picture. While marketers do many things, let’s look at just five key tasks and two tools that help with productivity.

Planning Your Marketing Efforts with Marketing Technology

How many times have you heard the Benjamin Franklin quote, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” or a variation of it? This is true when it comes to marketing. Technology has moved us beyond large dry-erase boards. You can find a lot of free tools online to help you, or you can sign up for a service like CoSchedule or Smart Sheet.

CoSchedule’s platform includes editorial calendars for blogs and social media as well as ways to manage projects. You can try it out for free to see if it works for you.

Smart Sheet expands beyond marketing and offers project management and planning to a variety of industries. For marketers, the platform has tools for campaign, event, PR and website management.

Social Media

Researchers say we spend at least 57 minutes a day just on Facebook, so it’s a no-brainer that social media marketing is important to businesses of all sizes. But if you are posting across several sites, it’s very time-consuming.

Hootsuite began in 2008 as a way to manage multiple Twitter accounts and within a year added Facebook and LinkedIn. Today you can also manage multiple accounts on Instagram, YouTube, Google Plus and WordPress. Hootsuite offers a free account to those who just want to manage three social media accounts.

Sprout Social entered the social media management arena in 2010. Like Hootsuite, you can manage multiple social media accounts. You can try it for free for 30 days.

If you want to add some creative memes or artwork to your site, Canva will help you create them. The site has some great design tools that even beginners can use.

Email Marketing

A report from technology marketing firm Radicati Group says that 3.7 billion people worldwide will use email. But not all of those people are your customer, so you need a plan to reach them effectively. And you can’t send an email to every individual.

MailChimp not only automates emails, but it also measures their effectiveness. The platform also works with Facebook and Instagram to find new customers. You can use their free service or upgrade for more options.

Litmus offers many of the same features and a tool that tests spam features. You can try the service for free for seven days.

Blogging

Before the Internet, companies had few forums to tell their story. You could send a press release to the media and hope to get a call for an interview or at least see it published. Advertising in the media was another option, but even then, it was costly. You also had the option of other alternatives like direct mail, billboards or other offline marketing opportunities, which could be very costly.

A blog allows you to tell your story unfiltered. You don’t have to be a writer. You can hire a writer or post other types of content. If you don’t know how to start or maintain a blog, several tools will keep you productive and on task.

WordPress is a one-stop shop for the beginning blogger. You purchase your domain name and pick a design from the company’s many templates.

So, you have the blog, what do you write? HubSpot offers many free tools to help marketers be more productive in their daily activities. Their Big Ideas Generator targets bloggers who just can’t figure out what to write. All you do is type in nouns related to your industry, and you will receive several ideas.

Analyzing Your Efforts

You have a plan, you are working on it every day, but is anybody paying attention? While you should consider your audience when strategizing your marketing, you need to make sure you are getting the results you want such as product sales or affiliate clicks.

Google Analytics is the gold standard for measuring website traffic. But what if you want to know how all of your content is performing? Cyfe is used by ABC, Groupon, and AT&T according to the company’s website to monitor all marketing including social media and website traffic. Businesses can install the dashboard for free or upgrade to a premium account.

HubSpot Analytics reviews data from blogs, social media, email, landing pages and more to guide marketers to what is working best for their business or industry. HubSpot provides training and support.

Technology is improving daily, and many of the tools listed will change. You have to find what is best for your schedule and your marketing plan. If you need help managing your marketing technology, contact Manage My MarTech today!

About the Author:

Kim Jarrett is a native of Georgia with more than 25 years of experience in journalism, content writing, and social media management. She has won awards from the Georgia Press Association and won Gabby awards from the Georgia Association of Broadcasting in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 in several categories including best use of digital media and best newscast. A native of Georgia, she received her B.A. in communications from Shorter University.

Professional websites are now imperative to the success of all small businesses. Customers are becoming more likely to look for places to shop online, so your homepage is a chance to make a positive first impression. Whether you’re hiring a web development team or you’re attempting web design yourself, the key is finding the best website builder that fits your needs.

You can spend as much as you want on amenities like SEO tools, social media support and mobile compatibility, or you can have a free simple website that’s supported by outside advertisers. How much you should invest depends on your budget and your industry. Below is a list of popular options with details about their benefits and drawbacks to help you pick the best website builder for your business needs.

Best Website Builder Breakdown

1. Wild Apricot

Wild Apricot Pros:

– Free basic account
– Easy to customize and update with a drag-and-drop builder
– Mobile friendly
– Instantly create
– Join area
– Member-only area
– News section
– Member directory
– Event listings

Wild Apricot Cons:

– Pay to access premium features
– If you need a highly customized website, formatting can take some work

Wild Apricot is the top provider of membership management software, used by over 20,000 websites. Wild Apricot provides a free, 30-day trial. In just an afternoon, you can build your entire website and upload your contact database all by yourself. That’s because Wild Apricot is an easy-to-learn system and even if you do get stuck, they offer free support to get setup as quickly as possible.

2. Wix

Wix Pros:

– There are about 300 templates to choose from
– Visual interface allows easy point-and-click editing
– Signup and activation are instant
– Affordable ad-free options for just $9.25 per month
– Reliably quick load times

Wix Cons:

– To set up an online store, you need the more expensive package, which is $17.70 per month
– Each email account costs an extra $5 per month

Tons of templates and reasonably priced packages make Wix the gold standard standard for creating professional business websites. Just keep in mind the high cost of maintaining multiple email addresses.

3. Weebly

Weebly Pros:

– Packages start at just $12 per month
– You get one free email address (extras cost 3.75 per month each)
– Instant signup and activation
– Drag-and-drop interface facilitates easy customization

Weebly Cons:

– While there are 80 themes, they are all very basic and look similar
– Setting up an online store that sells more than 25 products requires the $24 per month package
– Despite reliable performance, the site statistic reporting tool is error prone

Weebly is favored for its intuitiveness. Adding images or text can be done in just seconds. Theme and template options are acceptable. Be prepared to have your email inbox flooded with up-sells after you sign up.

4. SiteBuilder

SiteBuilder Pros:

– Comes with a free domain name and one free email account
– Choose from 1,200 unique templates
– Intuitive drag-and-drop interface
– Packages start at $4.99 per month
– “Save history“ feature allows you to review and undo recent changes
– Built-in blogging platform

SiteBuilder Cons:

– Setting up an online store requires a business account, which starts at $17.95 per month
– It can take a few hours after signup for your account to be activated

SiteBuilder offers a surprising amount of features for a very low price tag. The templates aren’t particularly exciting, but they look professional enough.

5. SquareSpace

SquareSpace Pros:

– Dozens of elaborate themes and templates
– Free domain name
– Easy set up for blogs and online stores
– Instant signup and activation

SquareSpace Cons:

– More costly than most at $18.00 per month
– Editing requires a learning curve
– Each email account costs $5 per month

SquareSpace has some of the most elaborate and professional template options. The large amount of freedom comes with a learning curve and a steep price tag, but it’s worth it if you have a lot of pictures. It’s by far the best website builder for professional photographers, but it’s overkill for websites lacking in high-quality image assets.

6. WordPress

WordPress Pros:

– Easy to update for anyone with basic computer skills
– SEO plugins increase traffic by making sites more searchable
– Flexible online stores options
– Mobile optimization
– Built-in blogging platform
– Massive developer support community

WordPress Cons:

– Creating custom layouts can be tedious
– The WordPress software requires regular updates

Two Options: Hosted WordPress vs Self-Hosted WordPress

Many people understandably do not know the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. The former is a platform for building websites hosted elsewhere; the latter hosts basic free websites.

With WordPress.org, which is often referred to as “self-hosted WordPress,” users must install and host the WordPress platform on their own server or find a host like GoDaddy or Bluehost. WordPress recommends using Bluehost, but other hosting services such as GoDaddy work well with WordPress. Developers can add themes, blogs, plugins and customized coding for almost unlimited flexibility.

Hosted WordPress sites reside on WordPress.com. They are free to set up, but they come with advertisements and a subdomain, which makes it harder for customers to find you. Users have free themes to choose from, but few things can be customized. WordPress.com offers premium packages starting at $8.25 per month that permit slightly more options, but it doesn’t offer nearly as much freedom as self-hosted WordPress sites.

Choosing the Right Website Builder for Your Small Business

So, which option is the the best website builder? It’s ultimately a matter of personal preference; the better question to ask is, “What do I want out of an online website builder?” Once you make a list of your desires and compare them to your budget, the choice should be clear.

Once you’ve got your site set up, you may want to liven it up with some engagement to keep your visitors interested. Check out this post to learn more – Easy-to-Implement Options to Improve Visitor Engagement on Your Websites.

Sources:

Why You Need a Self-Hosted WordPress.org Site Over a Free WordPress.com Site

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ashley-wren-collins/selecting-the-best-websit_b_7944636.html

10 Best Website Builders Reviewed. I bought & signed up.

Is WordPress the Best Choice for Your Company Website?

Separate studies by Pegasystems and InsideSales depict ‘fear and confusion,’ but offer some strategies for AI-using businesses.

Source: Two new reports: Many consumers afraid of, and confused by, artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning open up ann incredible range of marketing opportunities to businesses. However, it looks like many decision makers aren’t quite so sure yet when it comes to AI-enabled sales and marketing.

In recent surveys by both Pegasystems and InsideSales, customers expressed fear and confusion when it comes to AI. According to Pegasystems’ survey of 6,000 consumers in six countries, 72 percent felt a level of fear when it comes to AI. Hey — I’m not going to lie, I am a little trepidatious, too, but I do like my Alexa, Siri, Netflix suggested content and more. Funny, though, that many of the survey respondents didn’t recognize those as examples of artificial intelligence!

So what does this mean for your business? If you aren’t yet using artificial intelligence such as automated chat bots or personalization, it may not mean much. But, don’t let your customers’ fears leave you behind your competition. As we see from the survey results mentioned in the recent MarTech Today post, many people don’t realize they use some form of AI on a regular basis.

As you begin implementing forms of machine learning and AI technology in your sales and marketing efforts, make it subtle. Don’t let customers feel like the robot overlords are watching and monitoring .  .  . waiting to take over at a moment’s notice.

Featured image source: Gratisography.com

Are you conducting contextual marketing using Artificial Intelligence (AI) or just doing targeted programmed marketing? There’s a difference that many marketers don’t recognize. Programmatic marketing is based on if this/then that rules that are set up by a person, but AI-powered platforms base actions on patterns and insight from data. Don’t think of AI as a replacement for humans; we’re not in the movie iRobot. AI is a supplement for our abilities and knowledge.

Defining Artificial Intelligence

On a recent Social Business Engine podcast episode, Paul Roetzer, CEO of PR 20/20 and founder of the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute, described AI as “the umbrella of the tools and technologies that are designed to make machines smarter.” Machine learning sits below AI and is not a synonymous term. When a computer looks at past user behaviors to make suggestions, that is machine learning. Within machine learning is the subcategory deep learning.

Marketers understand that AI is becoming a major player, but according to OnBrand Magazine’s  State of Branding Report 2017, only a third of more than 500 “global brand managers and CMOs” plan to invest in AI-powered technologies this year. Instead, they’re planning their budgets for analytics, social media monitoring, and other previously effective tools.

The data that AI collects and analyzes is well above the data a marketer would garner from asking their prospect questions. As Roetzer points out, AI isn’t sci-fi or a fad. Now is the time to start to look at AI and understand how you can apply it. In this blog post let’s review some of the software that relies on AI and is available to marketers today.

AI-Powered MarTech

According to a study by Demandbase, 80% of B2B marketing executives think that over the next five years B2B marketing will change entirely. The changes are starting now for both small businesses and large corporations. Educating yourself on what AI is and how you can implement it in your organization is a must. A few possible AI applications include targeting customers, making data backed actions, and streamlined reporting and analysis.

Machine learning recognizes patterns and their evolution within datasets. Programs such as Demandbase apply machine learning to increase sales pipeline by identifying prospects and focusing on Account-Based Marketing (ABM). Ceralytics uses AI for optimizing content marketing. The tool helps to clarify your audience’s needs and shows you what topics to cover.

You may have heard of IBM Watson from when it won Jeopardy a few years ago, or maybe over the winter holidays you discovered IBM Watson Trend; it predicted the best gifts for people based on AI. Watson Marketing solutions include analytics for customer experience, a content marketing hub, and strategizing of interactive design.

Albert is an AI Marketing Platform that can conduct campaigns “across all channels, paid and nonpaid, including email, mobile, social, search and display.” The longer the software is used, the more data is built up and the better decisions the machine can make. The software can help to save time and money, increase sales, create a better customer experience and so much more.

Recently Salesforce revealed that their AI layer, Einstein, is now going to be available to all of their clients. The AI is built directly into the platform and provides predictive insights to target new segments, optimize campaigns, enhance the customer experience and many other features.

These are just a handful of the marketing technologies available today that use Artificial Intelligence.

Applying AI in Your Organization

Now that you know a few examples of AI based marketing technology and what it can do, review your processes to see what can improve with the functionalities of AI. A few additional core functions AI can help are generating blog titles, automating emails, and scheduling posts on social media. If you’re unsure if the companies in your marketing stack are currently using AI, then ask. They may not have anything now, but it could be in the works.

Jumping into Machine Learning without clear intentions is not a good idea. It will be overwhelming and require countless working hours to set up objectives and then input the basic rules to get the system started. Focus on a particular problem that your brand has a lot of data on and clearly understands.

Don’t turn away from AI because you’re worried it will take your job. This science is meant to help marketers in their efforts, not replace them. Yes, your day to day operations will likely change as more tasks become automated, but this will open up more time for creativity in how you build relationships with customers.

From beacons to user-generated content, columnist Jason Warnock takes a look at the email marketing innovations we can expect to see more of in 2017.

Source: Why email is taking center stage in marketing innovation

Email marketing can seem kind of boring nowadays but before you yawn and roll your eyes, give this article from Marketing Land a read. Email marketing technology is getting innovative. There are exciting new opportunities for engaging your customers and prospects with email. Also, email remains one of the best digital marketing tools from a performance perspective. eMarketer reported in 2016 on two separate surveys where 80% and 81% of respondents said that email marketing drives email marketing drives customer acquisition and retention. It outranked organic search for acquisition and social media on retention.

So what are the innovative email marketing technology trends? Here’s a preview of what columnist Jason Warnock shares:

• Dynamic offers that present personalized email content and offers to individual recipients.
• The use of user-generated content in email marketing campaigns.
• Beacons to help retail and other bricks and mortar venues to email customers based on their latest visits.

Read the full post at Marketing Land for the full scoop on these innovative email marketing technology trends: http://marketingland.com/email-taking-center-stage-marketing-innovation-207842.

Small businesses look for effective ways to be productive and efficient while minimizing spend. With the right marketing software for small business, you can improve your marketing presence and minimize the resources and time required to do it. However, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the choices available. That’s why we’ve put together this brief guide to help you select the right solutions for your business.

Selecting Marketing Software for Small Business

Start With a Content or Inbound Marketing Plan

When it comes down to selecting the right marketing technology, it’s important to have an idea of what the technology needs to support. Know what that means? You should have a documented content/inbound marketing strategy in place. Creating the plan It doesn’t have to be as daunting as it sounds — even for a small business. I won’t cover these steps here, but I have provided some additional reading below:

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Structure Your Small Content Marketing Team for Big Success

3 Steps To Creating A Killer Small Business Content Marketing Strategy

How 10 Small Businesses Used Content Marketing to Drive Sales

25 Questions You Need to Ask When Creating a Content Strategy

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Identify the Things You Need In Order to Execute and Measure Your Plan

Once you’ve got your inbound marketing/content marketing plan set, it is question and answer time. Before you start researching which software is right for you, answer these fundamental questions:

1. What are you trying to accomplish through marketing technology?
2. How do you currently/plan to perform this action?
3. What do you expect to happen (or not happen) if you do/don’t use technology?
4. How much are you willing to spend to make this happen?

Take the time to think about the answers to these questions. If you want to grow your email list and improve your email marketing, you may not need to waste time looking at sophisticated marketing automation software. (Not that marketing automation wouldn’t be excellent, but it may be overkill for your business right now.)

If you need lead nurturing technology, define what that lead nurturing entails — a simple auto responder email? Something more sophisticated that sets off emails or social media messages based on prospect on-site actions or email opens? That will make the difference between choosing email marketing software and a marketing automation platform.

You get the picture. Put together your specs so you can limit your research efforts to focus on what you really want/need.

Think About Your Marketing Software for Small Business Options

I like to break down my marketing technology needs into these broad categories. If you’re doing online marketing, you need to consider each of these categories. But don’t worry — not every category requires additional spend. (There are free tools, built-in features on social media platforms, etc.). And, in some cases, you can find one tool to cover more than one need. For example, a great marketing automation solution such as Lead Liaison (we use that!) can help you with some types of content creation (email, landing pages, surveys), distribution (social posts, emails), engagement (lead nurturing), and measurement and analysis.

• Research — tools to help you research and gather information on keywords, competitors, influencers, customers, etc.
• Planning — planning tools may vary depending on the type of planning you are doing. If you are planning a campaign or event, you may want project management software. If you want to manage your content calendar, you may prefer editorial calendar software.
• Creation — solutions to help you create written, visual, interactive, and other types of content.
• Distribution — options for distributing content to your audience. This may include email, RSS feeds, social media posting, etc.
• Promotion — platforms that help you promote your message through paid programs, employee advocates, influencers, etc.
• Engagement — solutions for listening to and communicating with your audience.
• Measurement/Analysis — tools to help you measure and understand the success of your online marketing.

Once you’re ready to start researching solutions that fit your needs, there are several ways to get started. Your first step is likely going to involve querying your favorite search engine and poking around some vendor sites. Before you sign up for a free trial or request a demo, check out a few of the sites below to see how others review the technology vendors you’re considering.

• Capterra
• Software Advice
• G2 Crowd
• GetApp
• AlternativeTo
• TrustRadius

Ready to Find the Right Solutions?

Have you begun looking for marketing solutions to support your 2017 goals? What obstacles have you run into? What is your favorite marketing software for small business? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Ever had a situation where you had an excellent idea, but maybe it didn’t get executed properly? Yeah, we’ve all had those experiences at some point in our life — personally and professionally. An email marketing campaign with a high email bounce rate is one of those situations where execution gets in the way of excellence. Just like the poor kitty below…we think we’re ready and have it all set up to push the go button…and then something unexpected happens.

(Image Credit: http://www.cutenessoverflow.com/awesome-and-funny-jumping-cats/)

Just like the kitten’s jump, our email marketing campaigns may not succeed. Many times we have a big email list that we plan to send out to let everyone know about a cool new product, event, etc. So, we set up email marketing campaigns and just load the list in and run it. Then, the results start to come in, and we see that our email bounce rate is high. That’s not a good feeling because you know your plan didn’t work as expected.

What is a Bounced Email?

A bounced email means it never made it to its destination. There are multiple reasons why your electronic communications may not reach the recipient. Let’s review some of these reasons.

• A Non-Existent Email Address – This means the email doesn’t exist. Maybe there was a typo, or the person left the company, so the email is no longer valid. In other words, you’ve got a bad egg.
• Undeliverable Email –  This means there was probably an issue with their server. Many times if you wait for a bit and resend these will go through unless the server is no more because a company went out of business or something similar where the server is no longer needed.
• Mailbox Full – There’s always that person that doesn’t go through their emails! If someone doesn’t stay on top of their emails and their inbox is full, then your email will be denied.
• Vacation/Auto-Reply – This means your email successfully reached the recipient’s inbox; however, it gets recorded as a bounce because of the auto-reply.
• Blocked Emails – This means the server has blocked your email. Some companies and government institutions or schools have stricter servers that do not allow outside emails unless they are set up to be allowed.
• Other – This means the server didn’t give a reason for the bounce. It could have bounced due to one of the above reasons or something else.

It’s important to keep an eye on your bounces and appropriately maintain your lists. You may not think a high email bounce rate is a big deal, but it can affect you in the following ways:

• Costs you money. If your email marketing platform charges by the number of contacts in your database, why pay for dud emails?
• Causes inaccuracies in your reports. A bounced email will never be opened or clicked. These bad addresses skew your results.
• Can damage your sender reputation. According to Hubspot, “Bounce rates are one of the key factors internet service providers (ISPs) use to determine an email sender’s reputation, so having too many hard bounces can cause them to stop allowing your emails in folks’ inboxes.”
• Can get your email marketing account suspended. Mail Chimp, for example, will suspend accounts for too many hard bounces. As sources of tons of email for multiple clients, email marketing and marketing automation vendors must ensure their customers meet industry thresholds set by ISPs (internet service providers) if they want to ensure emails sent from their platforms continue to make into inboxes. So, it’s important that you maintain a nice clean list.

How to Clean Up & Manage Your Email Bounce Rate

In today’s business world, we rely on electronic communications to interact with prospects, customers, vendors, etc. A high bounce rate skews the success of your marketing campaign results. So, how do you work on scrubbing your list and managing it going forward? Here are some tools and tips to help you!

Validate Email Addresses – There are multiple tools available to verify your email addresses. Most of the tools are quick and easy to use. It’s a great way to rapidly identify dud emails before loading them into your email marketing tool. Here are some tools you can use to verify the addresses you have are valid.

• NeverBounce
• Verify Email
• Kickbox.io
• QuickEmailVerification
• DataValidation

Run a Check Every 6 Months – People change jobs fairly often these days. So, it’s a good idea to run a check on your email addresses about every six months to ensure you’re using a valid list.

Monitor Auto-Reply Bounces – If you’re continuously getting auto-response bounces for specific emails, then you should probably consider removing them from your list. Many times when someone departs from a company they set up an auto-responder email to notify people the person is no longer part of the organization. So, you should monitor these types of bounces to see if they are actual out of the office responses or if the person is no longer working there.

Don’t get your company or your email service provider flagged and blacklisted because of a high email bounce rate. Stay on top of it and keep it up-to-date by verifying the information you have is correct. Let us know if you need help with your email marketing campaigns!

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Have you found that not a lot of people are interacting with your content?  If so, you may be suffering from Boring Title Syndrome. Yes, this is a thing…Maybe I made it up, but it’s still a thing!

No one wants to click on a blog post that sounds like the same old stuff. You need to grab your readers’ attention to boost engagement with your audience. Remember Emeril? “BAM! Kick it up a notch.” That’s what your title needs to do. Your title should increase engagement with your audience by grabbing the reader’s attention. Just make sure your title is related to the actual content. Don’t do the old bait and switch…that’s not cool.

How to Boost Engagement with CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer

So, let’s go ahead and jump right in! Below is a video on how to use the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer right within WordPress. If you don’t have the paid version of CoSchedule that integrates with WordPress, don’t worry they have a free version you can use too.

As you can see from the video, all you have to do is make some tweaks to your blog post titles, and CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer will help you work to get a great title to improve how you gain attention from your audience.

Boosting engagement with your content on social media starts with what the readers first engages with related to your post…which is typically your title or an image. If you need help writing an attention grabbing headline, then CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer is a great place to start! Increased interactions on social media is a great way to start identifying new lead opportunities.

Need help managing your marketing automation tools? Contact us to learn more about how we can help!

(Disclosure: The CoSchedule link is my referral code)

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