Blog

  • How to Create an Editorial Calendar [Examples + Templates]

    If you’re anything like me, you’re consistently working out of at least 20 browser tabs, four journals, a yellow legal pad or two, and a myriad of Post-it notes stuck around your computer monitor.
    To the average overseer, it’s nothing short of chaos. To the blogger, it’s evidence of a (desperate) need for an editorial calendar.

    My muddled system transforms dramatically when I work with a team. I realize the need for organization and structure, and this could not be more necessary than managing a blog. Without a mutually agreed-upon system for planning, writing, and scheduling content every week, you can find yourself in a pile of missed deadlines, unedited blog posts, and a fair amount of team tension.

    There’s no such thing as a perfect editorial calendar — it all depends on the needs of your team. Nonetheless, there are several questions you should ask yourself to determine what your editorial calendar should look like. These include:

    How frequently are you publishing content? Do you have stuff going live every day? Once a week? Perhaps multiple times a day? Finding out how often you publish can tell you how best to visualize your editorial calendar regularly.
    Do you create more than one type of content? If you upload as many videos to YouTube as you publish articles to your company blog, your editorial calendar will need to distinguish between the two.
    How many people will use this editorial calendar? The best editorial calendars allow multiple people to brainstorm, collaborate, and provide feedback on assignments in real-time — directly on the calendar.
    What are the various stages content goes through before it’s published? How complex is your content pipeline? Is there a substantial review or approval process that each piece of content goes through? Make sure your calendar can distinguish between two similar assignments that are in different stages of creation.
    What format will you use to organize this calendar? You’ll want to choose the system that best aligns with your goals and your team’s workflows. The next section discusses the most common formats.

    Let’s take these points and put them into practice to create your perfect editorial calendar.
    How to Create an Editorial Calendar
    A successful editorial calendar is a living project that your business will change as your grow and scale your social media strategy. To start the process of creating your own, we have some resources to simplify the process.

    With all the different types of calendars you can create, we’ll discuss the different types you can choose, and how to plan the rollout of your amazing content with them.
    1. Choose a format for organizing your editorial calendar.
    There’s no such thing as a perfect editorial calendar, but some formats will be better than others at helping you solve your team’s goals. Once you choose a format, you’ll also want to decide on how you will implement it — picking a tool or platform that offers the features or interface your company needs most.
    Here are some of the different ways to format your editorial calendar:
    Traditional Calendar or Calendar App

    Image Source
    Whether you’re tracking deadlines on a big paper calendar on your desk or through an app like Google Calendar, this is one of the most straightforward ways to know what’s going out and when.
    The disadvantage, though, is that there’s more to project and content management than publishing dates, and a calendar may not always be effective enough on its own.
    Spreadsheet

    Image Source
    Spreadsheets have always been a favorite for content management. There’s something so satisfying in seeing all your necessary data points aggregated in one place and organized neatly into rows and columns. With Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, spreadsheets are easily accessible and don’t have a high learning curve.
    One advantage of using spreadsheets is that they can be easily paired with calendar apps and content management tools. By importing a .csv file, you can load the information into multiple places as needed for the tasks at hand (see the Google Sheets and Hootsuite Planner combination in the next section for inspiration).
    Kanban Board or Other Project Management Tool

    Image Source
    Kanban is a visual system for project management that involves moving cards through different stages of a project. It’s popular in editorial management because it can be easily used to represent an editorial workflow no matter what your quality assurance process is or how many hands touch a piece before it’s published.
    This means that a Kanban board can easily accommodate your content calendar if you require more planning and management to push things live. Popular options for this type of system include Trello, Airtable, and Meistertask.
    Content Calendar (and Management) Apps

    Image Source
    Taking the calendar concept a little further, there are apps and software platforms that have been designed specifically for content management. They include both the calendar and the project management aspects that are required to get the job done along with other helpful features for high-volume content marketing teams. Examples of these platforms include CoSchedule, Contently, and Loomly.
    2. Designate your main marketing channels.
    Editorial calendars are highly visual tools, and differentiating your calendar using color coordination for the different channels you post on can eliminate confusion amongst your marketing team members.
    Make your editorial calendar easier to interpret by dividing the types of posts or subject matter using different visual cues to ensure you schedule the right content at the right time.
    3. Plan your posts consistently.
    Organizing your editorial calendar to be posted on the same weekly schedule can drive your pages to have more exposure via social media algorithms and potentially raise your engagement as a result.
    You see, when you post on a frequent basis and use a social media platform often, you’re in turn keeping your followers coming back to the platform as well. Platforms reward profiles that drive this engagement with more visibility, and after all, these platforms are after capturing and maintaining people’s attention.
    Social media channels favor profiles that use their website often, and when you add a patterned or consistent posting cycle to it, you’re using the platform in an optimized manner.
    4. Study your competition’s posting frequency.
    Look to other businesses posting in the same industry or niche as yours, study which are successful in capturing that attention and how they got to that level of success.
    By no means should you copy others’ content subject matter or the exact dates or times they post, but instead pull inspiration and make your own editorial calendar that could possibly garner attention on the days or times competitors aren’t posting.
    5. Audit and adapt your editorial calendar as necessary.
    It’s all a matter of trial and error when making your calendar. If you begin with low engagement the first couple of months, you should run a company content audit and adapt your content calendar to better engage your followers.
    Above all, creating an editorial calendar will make your marketing team work in a more streamlined, organized manner. With that being said, let’s look at some pre-existing calendars that’re optimally organized.
    Editorial Calendar Examples
    To help you implement an editorial calendar, we’ve also included real examples from a few of the most successful content teams out there. Check them out below and find out what makes their calendar so useful.
    1. HubSpot Editorial Calendar [Template]
    Platform: Excel

    Free Download
    The interactive HubSpot Editorial Calendar Template was built for writers and content strategists to outline their posting strategy. Included are prompts for the content’s title, meta description, URL, CTA, and more. This template is completely free and can be used on both Google Sheets and Excel.
    2. Buffer’s Editorial Calendar
    Platform: Trello

    This is the actual editorial calendar of Buffer, a social media content scheduling platform. Naturally, the company’s content is supported by an editorial calendar that describes an assignment’s author, title, publish date, and where it is in the company’s editorial workflow (content can be in the “Ideas” stage, in the “Pipeline,” “In Progress,” or “Editing”).
    Each rectangular tile shown above represents an individual piece of content — whether it’s a blog post, video, or even a podcast episode.
    As you might be able to tell, Buffer’s editorial calendar is built on Trello, a common project management tool. And although you can use Trello more than one way, Buffer uses most of its available features so everyone has the information they need within a few clicks — regardless of what they do for the company and how the calendar affects their work.
    “An editorial calendar should be a resource for your whole team, not just content creators,” says Ash Read, Buffer’s editorial director. “It should be something anyone can easily access to see what’s coming up and also suggest content ideas. Sometimes the best content suggestions will come from people outside of your marketing team.”

    In the next screenshot, above, you can see what’s inside each rectangular tile. When you click on an assignment, Buffer logs feedback as the content is created and reviewed. Says Ash: “It’s not just a calendar, but a place to share feedback, editing notes, pitches, ideas, and more.”
    3. Unbounce’s Editorial Calendar
    Platform: Google Sheets
    This is the editorial calendar of Unbounce, a creator of landing pages and related conversion tools for marketers, as well as a HubSpot integration partner. Unlike Buffer, this company uses Google Sheets to manage their entire content production, and the way they’ve customized the spreadsheet above would be pleasing to the eyes of any content creator.
    In addition to organizing their projects by month, what you might notice from the screenshot above is that Unbounce also sorts their content by the campaign they’re serving — as per the first two columns on the left hand side. This allows the business to see what multiple assignments — listed vertically down the third column — have in common, and track content that extends beyond the Unbounce blog.
    Shown below, the Unbounce blog has a separate editorial calendar in Google Sheets that allows the blog to work alongside the larger company initiatives. Nonetheless, using spreadsheets for both content workflows has proven to be the best choice for the company’s growing operation.

    “We’re a small content team, so other platforms would likely overcomplicate things,” says Colin Loughran, editor in chief at Unbounce.
    Ultimately, this editorial calendar keeps Colin’s team in sync. “While we try to lock dates a few weeks in advance,” he explains, “the reality is that sometimes we need to make changes very quickly. A product launch might move into a slot we’d planned for something else, for instance, or a guest contributor will be delayed in delivering a revised draft. When that’s the case, having a centralized resource that everyone can check is a necessary safety blanket.”
    4. Digital Authority’s Content Calendar
    Platform: CoSchedule
    Digital Authority, a marketing agency that specializes in content and social media, distinguishes between its big-picture content goals vs. smaller content-related tasks.
    Image Source
    Digital Authority uses CoSchedule to plan out timelines for pieces such as blogs and social media posts. The advantage of this is the color categorization, calendar and task views, and the ability to create social posts across platforms from within one portal.
    There are also features to keep the team actionable, on the same page, and agile with drag-and-drop features.
    5. Hootsuite’s Content Calendar
    Platform: Google Sheets and Hootsuite Planner
    Hootsuite, another social media scheduling platform, has a ton of content to publish both daily and far out in advance. That makes their content calendar a major component of their production strategy.
    Image Source
    Due to the volume, the Hootsuite team creates content far in advance using Google Sheets to plan and organize across channels. Once the strategy is created and executed, posts that are ready to be published are represented on Hootsuite Planner.

    Editorial Calendar Template
    Ready to make your own editorial calendar? No matter which platform you ultimately want to work out of, a spreadsheet can help you take inventory of what content you have and how quickly it moves from start to finish. Try our free Blog Editorial Calendar Templates.

    Using the templates linked above, you’ll be able to organize, categorize, and color code to your heart’s content. Use these templates to target the right readers, optimize posts with the best keywords, and pair each topic with a killer call-to-action.
    In this download, we’ve included three different templates for you to choose from. Why three? We recognize that not all content teams are the same. While some feel most efficient with a centralized editorial calendar solution, others may need the gentle push of an upcoming deadline right on their calendar. Therefore, you’ll have access to all three templates in Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and Google Calendar.
    Plan Out Your Editorial Calendar with Ease
    With a little customization, your blog calendar will be running smoothly, leaving you time to be the content-writing, lead-generating machine you strive to be.
    Editor’s note: This article was originally published May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

  • A Look Back at 30+ Years of Website Design

    Web design has come a long way since 1991, when the first ever website was published. Exclusively text-based, this site marked the beginning of what would become a digital revolution.
    And while recollections of “under construction” GIFs and blinding background colors make me thankful for just how far the web has come, there are some historical web design choices that actually demand a nod of respect.
    Websites like this one haven’t been lost to time, either. If you want to see what a website looked like at any period since its launch, enter its domain name into the Wayback Machine and choose a date. In this post, let’s take a look at how web design has evolved, from text-only interfaces up through the sleek, modern designs we see today.

    Early 1990s: Antiquity
    The early 90s marks the start of our website design timeline. At this point, there was no such thing as a high-speed internet connection. It was dial-up modems, or it was nothing. Therefore, websites needed to be built for less-than-stellar connection speeds. They mostly looked like walls of text — what we now take for granted as “design layout” did not exist.

    While later versions of HTML allowed for more complex designs, they were still very basic compared to today, consisting mainly of tags for headers, paragraphs, and links. Visual elements and styling like typography, imagery, and navigation were things of the not-too distant future.
    Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
    While the function of these early sites was purely informational, we can see some design elements that apply today. These old web pages were very lightweight and optimized for a slow internet connection we all still experience from time to time. These design considerations took the user experience into account, something today’s websites don’t always do, even with faster speeds.
    Yes, today’s internet can handle media-rich websites … but it still has some limits. Large media files, heavy graphic design, and excessive animations can all contribute to higher bounce rates when load speeds aren’t as fast as we want. Keep your user in mind when considering complicated design, and remember to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Superhero).
    Mid-1990s: The Middle Ages
    The middle ages of web design were plagued by on-site page builders and spacer GIFs. (Better than an actual plague though, right?) By the mid-90s, web design had evolved both in terms of structure and appearance. Designers began using table-based layouts to organize content, allowing for greater flexibility and creativity. Sites were still quite text heavy, but text could now be divided into columns, rows, and other navigational elements for better readability.
    Graphical design elements also quickly grew in popularity. Page hit counters, animated text, and dancing GIFs are just a few of the graphical elements that mark this period in web design.

    Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
    Today, there are plenty of reasons why table-based design is not the best choice for your website — the extensive markup, slow load times, and visual inconsistency are just a few of the pitfalls.
    Regardless, this development was key in the evolution of web design: It was the first move toward non-linear page structure. Different elements could now be positioned in different sections of a web page, and designers had to consider the best way to present information to the user.
    Page structure remains critical when thinking about navigation and content. It largely determines how the user experiences and interacts with your site. While these considerations might not have been at the forefront during the middle ages of web design, they are certainly at the forefront today.
    Late 1990s: The Renaissance
    Renaissance. Rebirth. Web design has had its fair share of reimaginings, but one of the first occurred with the introduction of Flash. Introduced in 1996, Flash opened up a world of design possibilities that weren’t possible with basic HTML. It was the marriage of virtual graphics and interaction.
    While many of the same design elements from previous periods were still present, they were enhanced with animations, tiled background images, neon colors, 3D buttons, splash pages, and other multimedia.
    Flash marked the beginning of visitor-focused design — structure and navigation became important considerations and designers began to hone in on appearance and usability over pure content.

    Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
    Flash was a game-changer, but it wouldn’t stick around forever. Flash is hardly ever used today and is deemed one of the biggest SEO sins of all time. Today, it’s the norm to opt for alternative methods such as CSS and JavaScript animations to get similar effects, or to embed videos from video hosting sites.
    Early 2000s: The Enlightenment
    The early 2000s were a period when usability and flexibility really came to the forefront of web design.
    Leading the charge was CSS, a coding language that allowed developers to store visual rules in files separate from HTML, effectively separating content and style. This gave greater creative freedom to both web designers and content developers — content could now be developed exclusively from design, and vice versa. CSS made websites easier to maintain (less code and complexity), more flexible (div tags are independent of one another), and quicker to load (smaller files).
    Better understanding of color psychology also led to increased use of whitespace and the decrease of garish colors, like neons. Links started being added to icons rather than just text, resolution and pixelation became more important concerns, and strategic placement of content also gained traction.

    Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
    People typically scan websites looking for the information they need, so any site that makes this job easier gets a giant check-mark. Savvy web designers know that most users don’t read everything on a website, and understand how readers take in information.
    Therefore, intuitively placed information, visually accentuated links, and straightforward navigation are just a few best practices today’s websites should adhere to. Always design with usability in mind!
    Mid- to Late-2000s: The Industrial Revolution
    The Industrial Revolution of web design begins with the birth of Web 2.0. It’s at this time that things really began to move toward the modern web. The growth of multimedia applications, the rise of interactive content, and the advent of social media are a few definitive features of this period.
    Moreover, these changes largely dictated the way web design was … well, done. Aesthetic changes included better color distribution, increased use of icons, and greater attention to typography.
    Most importantly, however, design became about content, and content became about search engine optimization. With the user now firmly at the center of design, selling products (at least explicitly) became the secondary function of websites — now it was all about getting found.

    Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
    As mentioned, the evolution of Web 2.0 saw the growth of SEO as a consideration. While these techniques have been adapted over the years, thinking about your website in terms of SEO is still a top priority for most thriving business websites.
    SEO demands content, and content largely became the focus of web design during this era. Keyword optimization, inbound and outbound linking, authoring, tagging, and syndication technology such as RSS became natural design elements. While link spamming and keyword jamming soon exploited these techniques, these methods are no longer effective and (I hope) have largely fizzled out.
    2010 to Now: The Modern Era
    Today, over two decades after the publication of the first website, web design has firmly established itself as an irreplaceable component of every good marketing strategy. Recent research found that 50% of today’s consumers think website design is crucial to a business’s brand.
    In terms of modern aesthetics, we have seen the proliferation of minimalism: sparse content, flat graphics (so long, 3D buttons!), simpler color palettes, and big and bold visuals. In addition, UX has taken center stage, giving way to such design features as infinite scrolling and single-page design.
    You may have noticed that our website has embraced all these features with its latest design:

    One more key step in the evolution of web design is the mobile web. Since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, there has been a re-evaluation of the way websites are structured to accommodate for the growing number of mobile web users. This includes several mobile frameworks that take a “mobile-first” approach, and an even greater focus on mobile speed optimization, since phones usually lack the processing speed or connection strength of your typical desktop.
    This digital revolution has also given rise to responsive design, in which page elements automatically adjust to the width of the browsing window, allowing websites to look good on any device or screen. Today, responsive design is necessary to ensure a pleasing mobile user experience, given over half of global website traffic comes from mobile devices.
    Where will websites go next?
    If there’s one factor that has informed every single one of these developments, it’s content. Every design element here has been adapted in such a way to bring the most relevant content to the user in the most efficient and effective way. Notions of accessibility, adaptability, and usability truly define this era of web design.
    Though there’s much more we can do with web design today, it’s fun to take a look back at where we came from. Looking at how web design has progressed thus far, it’s exciting to think about where it will be in the next 20 years.
    Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

  • Revenue Marketing: What It is and Why It Matters

    91% of marketers are confident that their making marketing decisions will positively impact revenue. Are you one of them?
    As marketers, we’re well-versed in the main goals of internet marketing: to generate leads and new business. Revenue generated from online marketing justifies why we include online channels in our marketing efforts.

    How then, do marketers come up with a winning online marketing strategy that directly ties to their revenue goals?
    If you’re unsure of the answer, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we’ve outlined the steps that you can take to plan successful revenue marketing campaigns.

    Let’s explain revenue marketing a little bit more.

    If you were to implement a revenue marketing plan, you would look at your revenue goals first instead of your business goals. For example, if the business has a goal to attract 10,000 new customers, but the revenue goal is to make $150,000 more than last quarter, a revenue campaign would strategize all the ways the team could generate $150,000 — ideally from 10,000 (or more) new customers.
    Benefits of Revenue Marketing
    Marketing efforts are typically broken down into four broad categories: Traditional marketing, lead generation, demand generation, and revenue marketing.
    Many companies move through marketing efforts in this order. Traditional marketing comes first and includes a focus on building your brand — generating name and product recognition in the hope of driving sales later on.
    Lead generation comes next. Here, marketing teams look to pinpoint high-value leads that are likely to take action and drive sales. Demand generation follows, and sees marketing and sales teams working in tandem to create multi-channel campaigns that bring interested B2C and B2B buyers to your site or sales platform.
    Revenue marketing looks to scale up lead and demand generation processes by tying them to specific metrics and making them both reliable and repeatable. Effectively implemented, revenue marketing offers three key benefits.
    Increased Customer Focus
    Traditional marketing efforts are all about finding ways to boost demand by making products or services more appealing at scale. Revenue marketing flips the script to focus on what customers want.
    What do customers want from the product? What would make them likely to buy more? Buy less? What non-product areas — such as speed of customer service response or the ability to easily navigate websites — have an impact on the likelihood of conversion? By focusing on the cultivation of long-term customer relationships, revenue marketing can help drive sustained sales.
    Enhanced Team Alignment
    Marketing and sales teams are often at odds. Where marketers look to positively raise brand profiles at large, sales teams are more concerned with the specifics of individual conversions. As a result, efforts from these two teams may work in opposition rather than tandem, in turn frustrating both outcomes.
    Revenue marketing, meanwhile, helps put these teams on the same page with a singular focus: The customer. By getting everyone on board up-front — from sales and marketing team members to C-suite sponsors and even IT if needed — companies can align goals and outcomes across their organization.
    Improved Goal-Setting
    Speaking of goals, revenue marketing prioritizes — you guessed it — revenue, rather than leads, prospects, or potential demand. By tying success metrics to the generation of revenue from specific sources, it’s possible to create goals rooted in the reality of current sales volumes rather than predicated on predictions of potential customer action.

    1. Customer Data Acquisition
    First up? Data acquisition. Here’s why: The more businesses know about their customers, the better they’re able to create marketing and sales strategies capable of driving action. Effective acquisition starts with permission — make sure customers know what’s being collected, and why — and gets up to speed with data analysis tools capable of deriving patterns from real-time data sets.
    2. Stakeholder Alignment
    Given the scope of revenue marketing efforts, it’s also critical for companies to ensure stakeholder alignment. This means taking the time to sit down with relevant team members and create a strategy that gets everyone on board. Not only does this provide a roadmap moving forward, but sets a tone of collaboration from the outset.
    3. Process Definition
    Process comes next: What does the big picture revenue marketing campaign look like, and what specific processes will help achieve the goal? This often involves discussions around demand management, targeted marketing efforts, and the use of customer data to drive personalized campaigns.
    4. Technology Implementation
    From email newsletters to mobile apps and social media sites, technology is instrumental in effective revenue marketing. As a result, it’s worth looping in IT staff as soon as possible to identify services and software — such as in-depth big data programs and powerful CMS platforms — that can help companies reach their revenue marketing goals.
    5. Results Management
    Last but not least? Effective results management. This includes pinpointing the key metrics you’ll use to measure success — such as total number of sales over a specific period or revenue growth year-over-year — and how these metrics will inform revenue marketing efforts moving forward.
    Developing an Effective Revenue Marketing Strategy
    It’s not enough to know that you need a revenue marketing plan — you need a strategy to achieve this goal. Not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered with our 4-step process.

    1. Set SMART revenue goals.
    To reach your revenue goals, you have to make them! If you’re a little confused on how to start making them or unsure of how to set them so they’re effective for marketing campaigns, let’s talk about how you can set measurable goals.
    Before you set out to conduct online marketing strategies, your goal should be clearly defined and understood by the team working on the campaign. The easiest way to do that is to make sure your goal(s) is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.
    For a little refresher on SMART goals and how they pertain to setting revenue goals for marketing campaigns, let’s walk through an example.
    Let’s say a marketing team for a company is generating $10,000/month in revenue through online and traditional marketing efforts, but wants to generate more revenue through beefing up digital campaigns. They have decided on a goal to double their revenue.
    While doubling revenue is a fantastic goal, it doesn’t have any basis for how to get there. To make this goal SMART, the team can add some terms to make their path a little more clear.
    So, instead of the marketing teams’ goal being “Double revenue,” it can be restructured to, “Through an online marketing campaign, the goal is to double revenue in six months by using channels chosen based on previous ROI data.”
    This goal gives a time span, is specific, relevant to the task, and measurable. While doubling revenue is a high goal, SMART goals can change; they’re merely a guide to making sure your goals are reachable.
    Begin by planning out your revenue goals. If you are still shaky on SMART goal making, HubSpot offers a free template you can download to guide you while writing them.
    2. Audit your current website and marketing ROI.
    Marketing analytics software can be used to measure the number of visits, leads, and generated sales you earn for each of your marketing channels. For example, HubSpot’s Marketing Hub offers the tools marketers need to measure the success of their digital marketing campaigns, such as website metrics.
    When you want to determine the initial ROI of online marketing efforts, using analytics tools is extremely critical. These tools have customizable settings that you can configure, so the platforms only track the metrics you care about.
    If you want to use your revenue goals to inspire your internet marketing plan, the metrics that will be useful may vary based on your business goals, but here are a few that are especially helpful: SEO metrics, ROI from pay-per-click (PPC), your blog’s conversion rates, and social media engagement.
    Those metrics will tell you how your marketing efforts are ranking on Google, how many people are clicking on your ads or campaign offers, how helpful your content is to readers, and how your brand is perceived by its audience.
    In general, if you intend to make money from a marketing channel, it’s important you continue to measure and iterate your strategy based on that channel’s core metrics. Once you know your analytics, you can use that data, paired with monthly revenue data, to estimate the conversion rate you aim to earn with your next campaign.
    3. Conduct research to determine actionable steps.
    If you’re unsure of how to determine actionable steps in your plan, it’s always helpful to do some research.
    I know, I know: you might not have the time to devote to copious amounts of research. However, by seeking out some information, you’ll be able to uncover actionable steps that work for similar companies’ revenue marketing efforts.
    For instance, we’ve talked about how leveraging data can help build your online marketing strategy. Before you start planning, if you’re unsure of where to begin, refresh your memory of must-haves when writing a marketing plan. This post is a good place to start.
    You can also look into downloading a report from a company that used revenue marketing. For instance, HubSpot offers this study, which details how revenue marketing worked for a campaign, and provides highlights of the report for those strapped for time.
    Additionally, you can look at a case study to get an understanding of how a revenue marketing plan looks from a bird’s eye view. This directory of case studies is organized based on industry, company size, and company goals, so you can easily find a case study that illustrates the plan you’re considering for your own business.
    Don’t forget to look into how using SEO can help make smarter marketing decisions. If you are confident in your SEO efforts, look at keyword and competitive data to figure out how much time and money you should invest in pay-per-click to hit your goals.
    Finally, research can help you determine if you’re following the best practices for lead generation and tracking. You can find new ideas for converting leads into customers using online marketing channels, such as blogging and email, as nurturing tools.
    To gain an understanding of how your marketing efforts help one another, and how to structure a chronological plan, a little research is necessary.
    4. Put it all together.
    Once you’ve got an idea of your current return, have set reasonable revenue goals, and know a bit more about the channels and methods you want to use, it’s time to put it all together.
    When you’re building your internet marketing campaign, keep in mind that every step in your plan should be based on revenue goals. If you’re going to use Facebook Ads as part of your campaign, for example, it should be understood by the team why that method will help you reach your revenue goal.
    Spend some time ensuring the content you want to create for the campaign will resonate with its audience, as well. Blog posts need to be valuable to readers (Keyword research helps you figure out what readers are searching for) and social media content needs to engage followers, for example.
    During your internet marketing planning process, outline how you’re going to measure success. Revenue is the obvious metric to measure, but what software will you be using? How are you going to interpret the revenue you earn?
    Once you’ve worked through your marketing plan, you should have all the resources in place to write a marketing report or case study from your findings on your own. Who knows — your report could even turn into a valuable content offer for your next revenue-based campaign.
    Realizing Revenue Goals
    Revenue marketing combines sales and marketing efforts to create campaigns that go beyond lead and demand generation to link campaigns with reliable and repeatable ROI.
    Best bet? Start with a clear strategy to help identify sales opportunities, pinpoint conversion-ready leads, and create metrics that effectively align campaign efforts with revenue outcomes.
    Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 19, 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

  • What do cxpartners and Google say about the state of customer-centric organisations in 2022?

    A new study by experience design consultancy, cxpartners, in partnership with Google, focusing on customer-centricity came across CXM’s desk.   The research report surveyed 110 businesses in Europe and found that customer-centric organizations grow nine times faster and are four times more likely to have highly satisfied employees. They have the ability to change in months that…
    The post What do cxpartners and Google say about the state of customer-centric organisations in 2022? appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • Testing new ideas

    What would a focus group have said about the title of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird? Is it easy to understand, did you know what it’s about before you pick up the book?

    What about the consumer testing on a name like Nike or Starbucks?

    Some objective measures of new names and concepts are worth knowing about before you launch. Seeing what search results look like, understanding the trademark register, having insight about pronunciation and language issues.

    But general “how does this make you feel” feedback on a new concept is almost certain to give you exactly the wrong feedback.

    That’s because the idea isn’t going to work because it’s objectively, obviously and completely better. It’s going to work because the network effects and cultural dynamics behind it push it forward.

  • Webex’s report details how to solve the CX trilemma 

    A research report by Webex entitled “It’s time to solve the customer experience trilemma” speaks about what is needed to increase customer loyalty so that the bottom line can follow. Immobile, which is part of Webex, took the time to speak to 2,000+ consumers and concluded that in order for businesses to improve customer loyalty,…
    The post Webex’s report details how to solve the CX trilemma  appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • 6 Best Practices for Importing Data into Salesforce

    To be an effective CRM, Salesforce relies on accurate and current data. Whether it’s customer interactions, opportunities, or contract details, inconsistent or unreliable data can be a killer… and could ultimately cost your business money. Learning how to successfully import your data into Salesforce can… Read More

  • Salesforce Apex Glossary

    Starting out as a Salesforce Developer can be a daunting experience. With buzzwords thrown around left and right, it can be difficult to understand what everyone’s actually talking about. To help, I’ve put together a glossary of keywords that I (and teams I’ve worked with)… Read More

  • Should You Pay for Your Own Salesforce Certifications?

    Not only do Salesforce certifications require dedicated time and energy, but they also come at a monetary cost. While writing about Salesforce certification costs in a recent article, it occurred to me that without support from your employer, getting certified can become a sizeable investment… Read More

  • Digital Marketing in 2022: Lessons from 2021

    In 2021, despite an ongoing global pandemic, we experienced several advancements in the field of digital marketing. Some of these have made our jobs easier, while others — like Apple’s iOs 14 update — meant that we had to get a bit more creative.  In this article, we’re going to take a look back at…
    The post Digital Marketing in 2022: Lessons from 2021 appeared first on Benchmark Email.