Author: Franz Malten Buemann

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Everyone loves to get free cake on their birthday. That elated feeling of getting an unexpected gift is one of the best parts of celebrating.  Receiving upsell emails with a special offer is similar to getting a prize on your big day. Except you get a surprise from a brand that you love for being…
The post The Art of the Upsell Email appeared first on Benchmark Email.

Big Idea or Enduring Question: Surprised, that setting a pre-selected default value for a Record Choice component is not easy? If so then, one thing to remember is that with enough creativity and persistence, Salesforce Flows’ versatility is such that you can design a solution for almost any business requirement. 
The post Getting Started with Salesforce Flow – Part 69 (Set a Default Value for Record Choice Set? Sure,Why Not?!) appeared first on Automation Champion.

In April of 2009, we ran banner ads on several high-profile sites to see if the investment would be worth it — and if so, which types of banner ads performed best.
More than a decade has since passed. Yet, banner ads are still prevalent in today’s changing digital landscape. According to the 2021 Internet Advertising Revenue Report, banner ads were one of the “most dominant” forms of advertising on the internet in 2020. Moreover, the report found that banner ads made up 31.5% of total ad spend in 2020 (second only to search ads). 
Clearly, banner advertising is relevant. And while many of our findings from 2009 are still valuable today, new research has taught us some things we might do differently. Let’s take a look at what banner ads are, principles for effective ones, and if they’re a worthwhile way to promote your business.  
What is banner advertising?
Also known as “display advertising,” banner advertising is when a brand places an ad on someone else’s website in the form of a rectangular image (a “banner”) on the top, bottom, or side of the webpage.
These banner ads can be static images, text, gifs, or videos. Most banner ads are placed on high-traffic websites, like popular media websites, to maximize the number of people who will be exposed.
For example, this is a banner video ad that Dell placed at the bottom of the popular media website The Cut:

Source.
How does banner advertising work?
Like all advertising, banner ads generate revenue for both the hosting website and the company placing the ad. The website earns money by charging the company in one of three ways: 

Per impression (how many people view the ad)
Per click (how many people click on the ad)
Per action (how many people take action after clicking, such as to sign up or make a purchase)

The companies placing banner ads usually do so to generate brand awareness, like the Dell ad example above. The ad invites readers to “learn more” and links to a landing page with more details about the product. 

Source. 
Banner ads are also ideal for retargeting campaigns, which target customers who have displayed interest in your product (such as viewing a product page or adding it to their cart) by showing them banner ads for the product on different websites they visit. 
Is banner advertising worth it?
While banner ads have proven effective in the past, are they still worth it? With mediums like email and social media becoming more of a focus, is investing in banner ads worth it?
The truth is, the overall effectiveness of banner ads has been decreasing. According to Marketing Insider Group, banner ad click-through rates have fallen to less than 0.1%. There are a few reasons for this:

Bots – Automated scripts scour the internet and click on advertiser banners for various reasons, including attempting to gain revenue for sites that solely rely on banner clicks for revenue.
View fatigue – Viewer fatigue is very real. Internet users feel so bombarded by ads that most have trained themselves to tune them out.
Ad blockers – Internet users are sick of ads and go out of their way to download various adblockers to keep them out.

But this doesn’t mean banner ads are a dead art! While their effectiveness might be decreasing, banner ads remain an effective online advertising strategy that plenty of savvy marketers are still using. In fact, in 2020, the year-over-year growth of ad spend on banner advertising was the highest of all the categories. 
This growth was possibly driven by an increase in the average time spent online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike other forms of digital ads, banner ads tend to be placed right within the reader’s eyesight, making them harder to ignore and perfect for brands wanting to take advantage of greater online leisure time. 
What our 2009 research found
We tested three different banner ads and accompanying landing pages to see which would perform best. Here were the three banner ads: 

Each ad had a matching landing page: 
Landing page 1: Earn money in your sleep

The key for this page was to promote the idea of earning money in your sleep. We highlighted the three simple steps involved (rebrand, resell, and then profit) and included an online signup form allowing those interested to sign up and start using the app on the spot.
Landing page 2: Are you a designer?

This was definitely the most controversial landing page of the four. We took the fact that Campaign Monitor is built for designers to the extreme by including a modal window that overlays the landing page, asking the person if they’re a designer or not.
If they clicked “You betcha,” they’d be shown the page below that highlights how easy it is to resell with Campaign Monitor.
If they clicked “Nope,” the landing page behind the modal would fade out with a message explaining that “It’s not you. It’s us.” We then linked to several other ESPs that they might consider checking out that are built for a less targeted audience.
Landing page 3: Modal-free just for designers

To test the impact the modal window had on conversions, we also tested the very same landing page modal-free. The page was exactly the same otherwise, providing a nice comparison.
The best performing banner ad

The blueprint banner ad outperformed the other two. With a conversion rate of 3.5%, we saw 370 people sign up for Campaign Monitor. Here are the full results.

The best performing landing page

This one surprised everyone. We were concerned that the modal window would result in a lower conversion rate because of the additional click. But we were pleasantly surprised to see this page get 25% more conversions than the next-best-performing page. Possibly the biggest surprise of all was that the “Earn money in your sleep” page with the inline signup form didn’t give us one new customer. Here are the full results:

This banner ad (and accompanying landing page) likely performed best because it follows some rules that still hold true today:

It identified a niche target market.
It didn’t ask for the purchase right away. This was the user’s first interaction with the brand, and rather than pressure them into a purchase, it invited them to learn more. 

It was unusual and surprising. Unexpectedly, this approach stirred up a lot of conversation on Twitter. Some called us “ballsy” and “classy” for linking to our competition: Others asked if we were breaking up with them.

What we’d do differently now
Were we to run this banner ad experiment again, we would take into account today’s trends:
Test a video ad
Video has been on the rise in digital marketing and advertising for a while, and the trend is only increasing. Hubspot found that 91% of marketers say that the pandemic has made video even more important for brands and 96% of consumers report watching more videos in 2020. 
When it comes to banner ads, marketers seem to be piggybacking on the video trend there, too. A 2020 report found that video ad spending is on the rise in banner advertising. 
Do cross-targeting
Cross-targeting means promoting your ad on all different devices (mobile devices, computers, and tablets) instead of focusing on one type. Though cross-targeting requires you to create different versions of your ads, it’s usually worth it. 
A SEMrush study in 2019 found that consumers are not device-loyal in their browsing habits. So, it’s important to make sure you reach as many people as possible by cross-targeting banner ads. 
Pay attention (and vary) to the size of our ads
Ad creative is important, but so is ad size, and that’s something we didn’t consider in our test. 
Google keeps an up-to-date report on the highest performing sizes of banner ads across the web: 

Medium rectangle (300 x 250)
Large rectangle (336 x 280)
Leaderboard (728 x 90)
Half page (300 x 600)
Large mobile banner (320 x 100)

Source.
Additionally, ad agencies that specialize in banner ads, like AdRoll and Bannerwise, suggest that variety in banner ad size is optimal. This is because your ROI with banner ads depends on how many people are exposed, and you’re likely to be exposed to more people through a greater variety of ad sizes and placement.
Wrap Up
Banner advertising is certainly still relevant in 2021 and continues to be a key strategy for marketers. 
While our 2009 experiment with banner ads shows that there are some timeless principles of effective banner ads, there are certainly some trends to stay on top of to make your ads even more effective.
The post Promoting Your Product or Service With Banner Advertising – Is It Worth It? appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

Emerging platforms provide a unique opportunity for marketers. While it’s important to try new things in your marketing, is it worth trying new things if the platform is still so new that you don’t know if you’ll find success? For example, the once dismissed TikTok is now a social media channel with immense value for all different kinds of businesses.
Discord is now an emerging platform posing the same questions as TikTok once did. Many marketers are unsure how it works and whether it makes sense to leverage the tool as an experimental strategy.
If you’re curious, this post will explain what Discord is, whether it makes sense to join the platform, and how to market your brand or business if you do.

What is Discord?
Discord is a voice and chat platform where users join conversation servers, sometimes through exclusive invites, and talk to other members about niche topics. Initially launched in 2015 for gamers, it has since grown to house a diverse group of users, from influencers to content creators to businesses using the platform as an alternative to Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Considering that it has experienced considerable growth and now caters to various groups, it makes sense that marketers may be curious about joining the platform and seeing if it can help them meet their marketing needs.
Can you advertise on Discord?
Yes, and no.
There are no native advertising tools that you can find on other social media platforms like Facebook or TikTok, but you can still advertise your business organically through community engagement; “Brands can authentically engage with consumers on Discord by leveraging what is already appealing about Discord to consumers — forming relationships around common interests and having discussions in real-time,” said Jesse Nicely, VP and group strategy director at Cashmere Agency, to Marketing Dive.
Which brands should use Discord?
Most businesses can benefit from using Discord, but the benefits are significant for those looking to create an always-on, engaged community of like-minded people that are interested in what your business has to offer. 
Kenny Layton, Discord’s Head of Talent Partnerships, said to EDM.com, “We like to call ourselves the 24-hour diner of the internet, where communities can just come and hang out with each other at any time they want.” While it is possible to create a community on other social channels, most people follow a wide variety of accounts, creators, brands, etc., but your Discord community is focused solely on your business.
Brands that are interested in learning more about their audience should also consider using Discord; “A lot of the time with artists they’re always having to guess what the fans want or are thinking…there’s no better way to know what your fans want than to have them tell you. That can inform…marketing and advertising spend. That data is valuable,” says Brian Barnett to EDM.com.
However, as mentioned above, it is an emerging platform. There are no specific tools for advertising your channel, but, again, it can help you create relationships with your audience, which is a driving factor of customer loyalty.
If you’re interested in leveraging the platform, let’s discuss the different ways you can promote your brand on Discord.
How to Promote Your Brand on Discord
Build your own community.
The best way to promote your brand on Discord is to build a business-specific community server, along with different related channels for conversation. You can then invite users to join, have them find you organically through browsing the platform, or promote it on your other social channels and in marketing materials.
Marques Brownlee, a technology YouTuber, has a Discord community channel called the MKBHD. His community centers around discussions of his content, like podcasts and new videos, but he also created additional channels to promote different topics of conversation, as shown in the image below.

Music streaming service Spotify also has a Discord community that features the channel #listeningparty (shown in the image below). Active users can share links to playlists they’re currently listening to, and voice chat about the music.  

Within your community, you can further promote your brand by sharing links to your external social profiles, as beauty brand Starface has done for their Twitter account in the image below.

In addition to advertising your business, you can also use Discord as a tool for customer service by creating specific channels to house answers to frequently asked questions, or where users can ask questions and get answers from you or other active community members.
When you create a community, you can also set rules to ensure that everyone is respected and welcomed and designate moderators to patrol the channel to ensure rules get followed.
Join communities and servers relevant to your business offerings.
Another way to promote your business on Discord is to join other channels or servers relevant to your business and engage in conversations. Most channels are moderated, but you’ll likely be allowed to share links to your content, like high-quality blog posts that help you to draw in new users.
Can and Should You Advertise Your Brand on Discord?
Nicely said, “Discord’s fast-paced nature makes it fertile ground for emergent culture and trends, and allows brands the opportunity to constantly engage with consumers on interesting topics.”
While the platform doesn’t have the built-in advertising features on other channels, it can be extremely useful for marketers looking to build a community of like-minded users who enjoy your business and want to engage in conversation. However, as noted before, Discord is still an emerging platform for marketing, so it can be challenging to get your foot in the door or see immediate success.
If you take the time to create a unique Discord community with different channels for conversation, engage with users in your community, and you provide them with high-quality content that they enjoy, you’ll likely find yourself with an active channel that teaches you more about your audience.

Have you ever heard of the law of attraction? It sounds ‘woo-woo’ but stay with me here. It’s a philosophy that means we can attract into our lives whatever we’re focusing on. More simply put, positive thoughts will naturally bring positivity your way.
Organic marketing works similarly. The goal is to naturally attract your audience to your brand or business. But how do you do that?

In this post, we’ll go over what organic marketing is and how it’s different from paid forms of marketing.

The main goal of organic marketing is to increase brand awareness and build a connection with your audience, whether through educational or entertaining content. Of course, as a business, you’ll need multiple ways to attract leads and convert users. Organic marketing is just one way to do that (paid marketing is another, which we’ll dive into below).
With organic marketing, you can attract visitors to your site, who will hopefully convert to paid customers eventually. The goal is to keep your business top of mind when it comes time for a consumer to make purchasing decisions.
Additionally, organic marketing impacts your paid marketing efforts because if someone organically comes across your website, you can retarget them later with paid ads (on social media, search engines, etc.).
Ultimately, the goal of organic marketing is to drive traffic to your site. While you’ll use social media channels, the best place to spend your time with organic marketing is SEO. In fact, SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media.
To measure the effectiveness of your organic marketing efforts, you’ll look at which content is driving the most traffic to your site, leads generated from those campaigns, and which channels drive the highest amount of high converting traffic to your site.
Organic Marketing Examples
Before we dive into the differences between organic and paid marketing, let’s look at some examples of organic marketing:

Unpaid social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tik Tok, etc.
Blog posts (this very post you’re reading is an organic marketing effort)
Guest posts
User-generated content
Email newsletters
SEO
Online PR and link generation
YouTube

Now, let’s learn a little bit more about inorganic, or paid marketing.
Inorganic marketing strategies include paid search ads, paid social media ads, sponsored posts, display ads, video ads on YouTube, etc. With paid media, you can micro-target your ideal audience and reach people who might never have heard of your business otherwise.
While organic marketing is more like word-of-mouth marketing, paid marketing is similar to sales-focused marketing. The goals for the two are very different. One is to attract audiences and increase brand awareness and the other is to convert audiences on a specific campaign.
You’ll measure the success of paid marketing through return on ad spend (ROAS), driving impressions, achieving high conversion rates, etc.
Now that we know more about the differences between organic and inorganic/paid marketing, let’s dive into how to build an organic marketing strategy.

1. Analyze your current traffic habits.
To build an organic marketing strategy, you should analyze your audience’s current traffic habits on your site and then compare them to your ideal audience.
First, it’s important to know where you get the most organic traffic currently. Is it from your YouTube channel, blog posts, or email newsletters?
Then, think about how your ideal audience usually discovers a business like yours. Do they rely on industry publications, social media, or review sites?
It’s important to understand what type of organic traffic that your target audience is consuming so that you can create that content. Additionally, you need to understand what organic traffic is already working for your business so you can continue creating that content.
Organic marketing only works when you truly understand your audience and what they want to see.
2. Create content.
Once you know which channels you want to focus on and where your target audience spends their time online, then it’s time to start creating content. However, before you can just create content, you need to brainstorm the types of content assets you want to create and build a list of several ideas.
For instance, if you want to focus on blogging, do your keyword research and competitor analysis, and then build a list of keywords you can create posts around. Then, you can start creating content.
However, if you want to focus on creating case studies or research, you’ll have to do first-hand research, and then decide how you’ll publish your findings.
Before you can create content, you’ll need to know which platforms and channels you want to focus on.
3. Optimize your content.
If you were to ask what makes organic content work, the answer would be SEO. You’ll want to optimize all your content so that it will show up on search engines and social media platforms. For example, the strategies might be similar, but you’ll optimize your blog content, video descriptions on YouTube, and social media posts.
To optimize this content, usually, the strategies involve incorporating keywords into your content, having a great design, and using metadata to let search engines know what your content is about.
4. Evaluate and improve.
Lastly, the key to any organic marketing strategy is to evaluate and iterate. You can use tools, like HubSpot’s SEO marketing software to plan your SEO strategy, optimize your content, and measure real return on investment.
This type of software will help you measure and keep track of your KPIs so you can see what’s working and what isn’t.
Organic marketing is all about bringing people to you, instead of reaching out to people via paid methods. With organic marketing, you’ll create several types of content to keep people engaged and interested in your brand. When it comes time to make a purchasing decision, they’ll think of you first.