Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Have you ever sat down at your desk first thing in the morning and spent a good 45 minutes browsing social media or getting lost in your inbox because you can’t focus on what you need to do? At the end of the day, you feel as if you’ve wasted 8 hours of your life that you’ll never get back.
On the other hand, have you ever sat down, opened your calendar app or a to-do list, and jumped right into work, knocking out task after task in a matter of minutes? When you shut your computer at the end of the day, you feel accomplished and know that you’ve done everything possible to move towards your professional goals.
What’s the difference between these two scenarios? A plan. Having your day (or week, or project) mapped out with a concrete action plan will help you feel more focused and accomplished in less time. When it comes to marketing, an action plan could mean the difference between a campaign that sizzles and a campaign that fizzles.
Now that you know there’s a way to ensure more days end with the satisfaction of work done well, let’s take a closer look at what these plans actually are and how they can benefit you.
What is an action plan?
An action plan is a proposed strategy for whatever you want to accomplish. It’s a clear, detailed list of all the steps you need to take to reach your goal, along with a proposed timeline of when you’ll complete each step or task.
Perhaps you’ve heard of action plans in the past, but never tried to create one of your own, Or maybe, this is a brand new concept to you and you’re pretty sure you just heard a choir of angels in the background.
What is the purpose of an action plan?
Action plans are designed to help you reach your goals faster. By breaking down projects into smaller steps, you can ensure that you:

Meet your goal in a timely fashion
Don’t skip a step
Communicate effectively with team members
Set reasonable expectations for what you can accomplish in a specific period of time

While they will vary in complexity, action plans are good for small projects, large projects, projects that you complete on your own, and projects that involve other team members or individuals outside of your organization.
Convinced you need action plans in your life? Good. Let’s take a look at the steps necessary to implement them.
How to Write an Action Plan
Action plans can be as simple or complex as they need to be. However, before you start writing out the steps to reach your goal, you’ll need to identify something very important… your goal, of course!
What is it that you’d like to accomplish? Is there a new campaign you need to prepare before a specific launch date? Maybe you’re teaming up with another business or a nonprofit for cross-promotion. Perhaps you’re looking to increase brand awareness through various channels.
Whatever your goals, get very clear on what it is you want, why it’s important, and when you need it done. You may wish to create a SMART Action Plan by incorporating SMART goals into it. SMART stands for: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. This framework helps you determine if your goals are realistic, identify what actions are needed to reach your goals, and defines what success looks like.

Once you’ve determined what you want to accomplish and when it will need to be done, it’s time to start devising your plan. Follow these easy steps to create your plan of action.

Use a template or tool to capture your action plan and share it with anyone who needs to be involved. (You’ll find some options in the next section)
Brainstorm. Consider all the steps that need to get done to complete your project. You may find it helpful to start with larger aspects of the project and then break those down into smaller tasks. No task is too small to be listed (let’s be honest, checking things off a to-do list feels amazing).
Delegate and assign responsibilities to team members. You don’t have to go it alone! Hopefully, you have a trustworthy team standing by to help complete tasks and inch you closer and closer to the finish line. This also allows you to identify what resources you need to achieve the goal.
Schedule due dates. If your project needs to be done by a specific day (which it should or it could stretch on indefinitely), then each task will have its own due date. Keep in mind that some tasks can be worked on at the same time, while others will require that a previous task has been finished before you can start the new one.
Set up alerts to keep yourself (and your team) on track. It’s very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind and forget about a larger project looming in the distance. Use your scheduled due dates to set up reminders and pencil in time to work on specific tasks.
Track your progress and check in with your team. Your action plan may have looked top-notch when you wrote it, but as you work through it, you may discover that things need to change. If you see that you’re falling behind in the tasks, it may be time to re-evaluate and potentially tweak your action plan.
Celebrate. Completing a project is often cause for celebration, but don’t forget to review what worked and what didn’t for a smoother project next time.

Leadership action plans will not only help you achieve your goals, but will also help your team be clear on what they need to do, and feel accomplished once they’ve done it. They will also serve to identify any weak links in your organization.
Action plan Formats may differ depending on the needs of our specific project, however, as long as you include the goal, the steps, the people involved, and the due dates, you’ll have a solid plan to work with.
Action Plan Templates
When you’re ready to create an action plan, there’s no need to start from scratch. There are a number of templates and examples available that will provide the framework you need to devise your marketing strategy.
Below, is an action plan example for a 30-60-90 Day onboarding plan. This can always be tweaked to onboard individuals into a marketing position, or to create a marketing plan for your organization.

A marketing action plan may be as simple as this template:

Image Source
You can also use Hubspot’s Marketing Plan Generator to guide you along the way.
No matter how you do it, an action plan may take a little bit of time to create, however, you’ll save time, energy, and resources when you have a clear plan of action for your next project or campaign.

There are lots of benefits to a well-planned content marketing strategy. Whether you’re after raising brand awareness, building authority, boosting organic traffic, or increasing conversion rates on your website, you’ll find that there are a few approaches that always work better than others. For one, focusing your attention on quality instead of quantity might not…
The post 6 Tips for Creating More Shareable Content (With Examples) appeared first on Benchmark Email.

I am trying to post ads on tiktok for my online store however I keep getting this message “the products/services displayed on the landing page require more information to be disclosed” I think the problem is I do not have a business license? Does anyone know if you need a business license to post TikTok ads? And does that mean I need an LLC? I was planning on getting one soon anyway.
submitted by /u/Michael_Gilder [link] [comments]

When Apple announced Mail Privacy Protection, earlier this year, it threw marketers into a bit of a frenzy. No one knew exactly what the effects of the new feature would be, but we knew it’d change the way we thought about and reported email marketing metrics.
The announcement had shades of GDPR, for those in the digital marketing world who were around to remember it. And while it seems like MPP’s effects won’t be as broad, the feature still has wide-ranging implications for the future of email.
While a lot of marketers will mourn the loss of data like opens and geographic location, we’d argue that MPP is actually going to be a good thing for everyone involved in the email marketing industry.
Here’s why.
How Mail Privacy Protection effects marketers
If you’ve heard the terms Mail Privacy Protection, MPP, or iOS 15 tossed around the past few months, but aren’t sure what they actually mean don’t worry! We’ll catch you up really quick.
In September, Apple released its new software update, iOS 15. And with it came a new feature: Mail Privacy Protection.
In short, MPP does two things: 

Effectively disables open tracking
Obscures the user’s IP address, removing an email marketer’s ability to know their location

For more on how it works, make sure to check out our guide. But to understand what the feature actually does, those are the two things you need to know.
Now, while that might not sound too bad, there are some serious implications for email marketers. The first and most obvious implication is that MPP makes open rate tracking far less reliable, putting the future of open rates as a metric in serious jeopardy. And as if changing our metrics and reporting wasn’t enough, it also means you’ll probably want to rethink any automated journeys you have set up that have automation steps based on whether or not a person opens an email.
While the loss of geographic data might not seem quite as drastic, there are a lot of marketers who depend on that data for list segmentation purposes. For instance, if you plan on sending different emails to different subscribers based on location, that becomes a bit trickier. Rather than relying on collecting that data automatically, you’ll now have to ask your users for it first-hand.
Losing this data also means that send time optimization — a popular feature among ESPs — will be less dependable, as it won’t have location data for a lot of users.
Why this is good for the future of email
This doesn’t exactly sound like a win for marketers, does it? While we’d agree that the loss of some data and functionality is inconvenient, we do think MPP will ultimately be a good thing for the future of email.
How? Because MPP will force marketers to focus on the experience they’re creating, not optimize their campaigns for hollow metrics like open rate.
With all of the email marketing metrics available to us, it’s become too easy for marketers to define success by top-line metrics like open rate. While those metrics are helpful, they’re not the end goal.
Our hope with MPP is that marketers will feel less compelled to write a deceiving subject line that overpromises and underdelivers on what’s actually inside the email, and more compelled to deliver value and enhance their subscriber experience every chance they get.
And hey, by focusing more on the experience you’re creating with email and the value you’re giving your subscribers, odds are, your metrics will probably all start to look better anyway. Funny how that works
How to focus on the user experience in your email marketing
So, what does it actually mean to focus on the experience when it comes to email? 
Don’t be deceptive with your subject lines or CTAs
Like we mentioned, it’s easy to feel compelled to write deceptive, overpromising subject lines or calls-to-action for the sake of seeing higher open rates or click rates. But ultimately, when subscribers catch on to the fact that you’re consistently letting them down with your actual content, they won’t keep coming back.
To be clear, we’re not saying that you shouldn’t follow best practices and make your subject lines and CTAs clear and engaging. We’re just saying that you shouldn’t try and boost your stats at the expense of your subscribers. If you can’t make the content of your email or the content you’re linking to compelling without lying about it, you probably shouldn’t send it in the first place.
Align your email goals to business goals, not just metrics
While email-specific metrics like open rate are a helpful proxy for success, they’re not the definition for success itself. We don’t just send email so that people open it — we do it do contribute to larger marketing and business goals, like website visits, purchases, or revenue generated.
Now that metrics like open rate and click-to-open-rate (CTOR) are out the window, it’s time to start re-thinking how we are going to define success with email. And in doing so, it’s also a good time to make sure your email marketing strategy is based around your broader business goals.
Focus on adding value
Let’s be honest, most marketing emails just feel like noise. Inboxes are crowded, and users are constantly scanning through to decipher what’s important and what’s not.
So, what’s the key to being one of the names that people look out for? Consistently add value to your subscribers.
This will mean different things to different types of people and businesses, but a good question to ask before sending a marketing email is whether or not you have a reason to be in their inbox. If you don’t, and you’re just sending for the sake of sending, then it’s probably best to rethink it.
Begin with the end in mind
When crafting a campaign or a single marketing email, it’s important to have your end goal in mind when you start. What, exactly, do you want to teach your subscriber, tell them, direct them to? Knowing what action you want them to take before starting will help inform all of the decisions you make when creating your actual campaign, leading to a better email experience for everybody.
Wrap up
Apple threw the email marketing world for a loop when they suddenly announced Mail Privacy Protection earlier this year. And while it may have sounded scary at first, marketers will adapt (just like they have with every other major tech update), and ultimately, we think they’ll be better off for it.
Here’s to hoping MPP brings a new focus on the experience that marketers create for their subscribers.
The post Why MPP is Good for the Future of Email appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

Last Updated on December 21, 2021 by Rakesh Gupta Introduction First of all, we’d like to introduce ourselves and our company: SharinPix. We’re based in France, and we aim to be the default go-to when it comes to taking, uploading and working with images in the Salesforce ecosystem. We started
The post Five Lessons Learned Working with Components in Salesforce appeared first on Automation Champion.

 

 

Raise the sail! … Or the sale, if your proverbial “ship” happens to be an eCommerce business. Such a decision never seems wrong; this is what brave, relentless managers and captains do. But, to keep the metaphor relevant, let’s assume the ship is sinking. Will simply going forward faster stop you from ending the journey on the ocean floor? Or maybe theEuropean Maritime Safety Agency will later judge that you allocated resources in the wrong place for the situation? In this article, we explain how a company with high churn and low customer retention resembles a sinking ship and direct you toward some unfailing, proven countermeasures.

 

What is the customer retention and retention rate?

 

The company’s ability to keep its customers over time is called retention. It’s a percentage-based metric that tells you how large a portion of the customer pool you retained by the end of a given period.

The new customers just acquired by the company, and the customers that churn by closing the contract, not returning to buy, or ending the subscription, both influence retention.

On the other hand, retention can be described not as a state but as an action. From this standpoint, you can think about retention as all the actions your company takes to increase the number of repeat customers and the number of purchases throughout their lifecycle.

Simply put, retention is all the efforts a company undertakes to convince customers to stay with it.

The customer retention rate is a measure of retention over a given period.

 

Customer retention formula

 

To effectively care for and nurture customer retention, it is important to know how to calculate it in the first place.

The first thing that interests us is a period of time during which the retention will be observed. This can be quarterly or yearly.

Then, we use the following formula:

[(No. of customers at the end of the period—No. of customers acquired during the period) / No. of customers at the start of the period] x 100

If we:

assume a yearly period for the customer retention rate
started the year with 20 customers
gained an additional five customers over the year
but one customer churned

We get the following formula:

[ (24 – 5) / 20 ) ] x 100 

which gives us a 95% retention rate.

 

Usual reasons for retention importance

 

Knowing the retention rate enables you to perform an audit of churned customers to determine the reasons for churn. The audit results should help you employ countermeasures and lower churn rates to enhance retention.

Why is it so important for businesses? First, let’s look at the most common and well-known arguments for keeping a high retention rate.

 

Loyal customers buy more often and spend more

 

Loyal customers purchase more regularly and in greater quantities. Retained customers are more likely to make additional purchases if you pay attention to what brands or types of products they like. The differences between “regular” and “loyal” customers are not small either—a 5% increase in customer retention can increase company revenue by 25–95%.

 

Access to more data

 

The longer customers stay with your company, the more data you’ll have access to and the more you can learn from their shopping habits. Data is crucial to eCommerce to better understand your current and returning customers so you can address their needs more precisely. Identifying their patterns, demographics, and other important factors can help you create more effective marketing strategies for retention and acquisition.

 

Referrals

 

Customers feel good telling people about quality service they received or a product that makes their lives easier. Satisfied and therefore loyal customers are more likely to share their experiences with your company and refer their friends and family, effectively bringing new customers.

 

Less price sensitivity

 

Loyal customers are significantly less price-sensitive or even price-conscious. They focus on the value your company brings to their lives and trust you with solutions to their vital problems. Loyal customers are experienced with your brand and understand well what they get for their money. Therefore, they are more likely to accept premium prices.

 

Better lifetime value

 

Engaged customers tend to have a longer lifetime and therefore also a longer lifetime value (LV) metric. It tends to be four times greater than in the case of the average customer. Engaged customers generate 80% of sales.

 

Affordability

 

Customers your business retains are familiar with your products and services, which reduces your marketing expenses, such as creating brand awareness and advertising your product range. Retaining a customer is 5–25 times cheaper than acquiring a new one!

 

The REAL reason why customer retention is crucial for eCommerce businesses not to sink

 

And these reasons are absolutely true! Looking at them, it’s easy to imagine how much faster your business will grow: the key metrics look awesome, and the ROI will get better and better in proportion to the rising retention rate. This shows how much better the business can be when the retention rate is high.

But to really understand how the marketing funnel works, imagine the opposite situation.

Imagine a customer churn so high and a retention rate so low that the customers are going out your back door quicker than they’re coming in the front door. This means that you are losing not only clients. You are losing money exponentially, as we explain in a minute.

Is this situation really so uncommon? After all, consumers today have more opportunities than ever in the history of eCommerce to simply move to the competition, if your company lets them down, does not engage them enough, and provides a subpar customer experience.

So let’s ask the same question with different words—do marketing budgets rise? Or even “skyrocket,” as sometimes claimed? Yes, they do.

When a company loses its customers, extra pressure is usually applied to the lead generation and sales team to keep the funnel filled. Without proper customer retention, defined as a set of actions the company undertakes to keep customers for as long as possible, this is, from the financial standpoint, extinguishing the fire with gasoline.As mentioned, acquiring new customers is 5–25 times more expensive than keeping existing ones. Increasing sales and lead generation represent the most expensive and unsustainable solution possible, resulting in marketing budget inflation.Simply put, it’s like trying to save a sinking ship with a small bucket when the water gets in faster than you are able to get rid of it—the effects cannot last; they only delay the inevitable.

There’s no way a company can grow in such circumstances. The positive reasons for keeping customer retention high are tempting. The one big, negative reason simply makes it a must.

 

The real job starts after the first order. And Customer Data Platform can save the day!

 

Among the ways of boosting customer retention, the most effective are efforts to enhance customer experience and, consequently, customer engagement. Following a poor customer experience, 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor.

In most situations, consumer experience directly translates to consumer engagement and thus to retention. In this blog we show in detail how the use of modern, AI-backed CDP, enabling omnichannel communication, can aid your company to track vital engagement metrics. But CDP provides you with more than tracking. To learn how SALESmanago can translate the knowledge you gain into retention-oriented action, request a SALESmanago demo.