Category: Marketing Automation

What’s a good marketing automation software to learn that will be relevant in 2023 and beyond? submitted by /u/evrm [link] [comments]

A great article from David Gasparyan about feedback he received at a recent marketing conference and what they are doing currently to generate leads. https://www.ledigitalmarketing.net/five-ways-to-generate-more-leads-for-your-business/ submitted by /u/Christopher-Tilley [link] [comments]

The creator economy is built around influencers and their audiences.
As audiences put a significant amount of trust in their favorite influencers, it makes sense that marketers would want to pay more attention to influencer marketing than before.
This post will go over the data-backed benefits of using influencer marketing, along with insight from a HubSpot social media expert.

 
7 Benefits of Influencer Marketing
1. Influencer marketing has high ROI.
1 in 4 marketers that currently leverage influencer marketing report that it offers the second highest ROI of any marketing trend, so your investments in influencer marketing won’t go to waste.

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2. Influencers help you save money.
We’ve mentioned above that influencer marketing has a high ROI, so your marketing budgets are worth something.
You also have the potential to optimize your campaign budgets and see high ROI, especially when partnering with smaller micro-influencers (those with under 100k followers/subscribers). In fact, of marketers that work with both large and small influencers, 44% say that the biggest benefit of working with small influencers is that it is less expensive.
3. Influencers are more trusted than friends and family for Gen Zers.
Gen Zers say that influencer recommendations are more important and impactful than those from friends and family. This means that the weight of influencer recommendations is much more powerful than before, as past trends have shown friends, family, or reviews from other consumers being the most impactful when making purchases.
Annabelle Nyst, Senior Content Manager, Brand Social, says about influencers, “Their followers pay attention to their guidance just as they would that from friends or family. That is far more powerful than some advertising copy.”
4. Influencers help you establish social proof and build awareness.
According to HubSpot’s 2022 Marketing Industry Trends Report, influencer marketing is the most popular and effective trend (with the highest ROI) in generating authentic content for your business, establishing social proof, and building brand awareness.
Nyst says, “Influencer marketing can be a really impactful tool for building brand awareness for your company and trust for your products or services. The power of influencer marketing lies in word-of-mouth marketing.”
They add, “Think of it this way: on the one hand, you have a brand telling you how cool it is and how its product is far superior to anything else on the market. On the other hand, you [audiences] have an individual who you’re already familiar with and whose opinions you trust and respect, telling you they love this brand’s product. Which are you more likely to trust?”
5. Influencers inspire purchases.
33% of Gen Zers have bought a product based on an influencer’s recommendation in the past three months, so influencers have the unique ability to drive purchases for your business, especially among your younger audiences.

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6. You can establish long-term relationships.
Marketers say that a benefit to partnering with smaller influencers and creators is being able to develop long-term partnerships.
Long-term relationships are beneficial because they increase credibility with an influencer audience when their followers see that they continue to work with you, use your products and services, and trust that what they use serves them well.
7. Influencers help you share authentic content in a human way.
Nyst says, “Influencer marketing doesn’t just get you in front of the audience you’re trying to reach — it gets you there in a way that feels authentic and human.” They add that influencer messaging comes through as a recommendation or mention from a real person who has built a dedicated community based on trust.
As consumers have moved away from sales to drive leads-type ads and more humanized content, a recommendation from a trusted influencer helps you inspire sales by building upon a pre-existing relationship.
Over to You
As the creator economy grows, influencer marketing will only become more popular and necessary. The stats and insight in this post show that investing in it will help your business.

Platform solutions have always been known as a one-stop shop for all of a marketer’s needs.
At their core, platforms are meant to help marketers, whether that’s understanding their customers’ journeys, optimizing the path to purchase, or quantifying the revenue that a campaign produces.
And, as I discussed last year, HubSpot delivered on the promise of platform through our world-class solution that doesn’t sacrifice power for ease of use.
Last year we focused on what it meant to be a valuable platform for our customers. Since then, we’ve made a number of product enhancements to double down on this promise.
Here at HubSpot, we’ve intentionally built our platform to meet the needs of organizations regardless of where they are in their journey. Our customers have always taken comfort in our easy-to-use tools and freedom to scale when they’re ready to.
That said, a lot has changed in the last few years and as a result, our customers’ needs are shifting. Although platform solutions are still the answer, customers need more than just the promise of strong technology.
They need connection.
Facing the Crisis of Disconnection
We’re living in a disconnected world – disconnected from one another, from the people we work with, or in this case, from the companies we do business with. In a time when connection matters now more than ever – this is a huge problem.
At INBOUND 2022, our CEO Yamini Rangan introduced this concept, that we’re suffering from a crisis of disconnection – disconnected data and systems, disconnected customers, and disconnected people.
As a result of that, our customers are interacting with products and businesses differently – they’re cautious and slow to trust brands.
They’re not only taking back ownership of their personal data, but they’re placing more trust in one another and expecting more flexibility and value from the companies they do business with. And it’s our job to fix that, keep them connected, and continue to trust our brand. But how?
If you ask our Chief Customer Officer, Rob Giglio, he would say that in order for your customers to feel valued, they need tools to evolve as they do. Empowering our customers to grow better by building deep and lasting connections with their customers is a top priority for HubSpot.
Give them those tools and they’ll naturally orchestrate stronger, more efficient processes.
United teams working on united systems translate into connected and consistent experiences for customers. Creating this is what translates to trust, and ultimately loyal customers.
Entering the Age of the Connected Customer
Creating connection matters. Customers want to feel known and valued, with the power, ease, and support to help them scale.
Our customers are facing difficult financial headwinds and are finding themselves needing to do more with less.
This is why the value that marketers are able to receive from their technology investment is more important than ever – whether that’s consolidated views into campaigns, sharper analytical tracking, or more powerful targeted ad capabilities, all while respecting customer privacy.
More on that here.
Marketing Hub gives marketers access to their customer data and tools in real-time, so they can create personalized experiences that attract, engage and delight customers in a more connected way.
HubSpot has always put the customer first, and we’re doubling down on that commitment by prioritizing genuine connection and continuing to build products that meet the ever-changing needs of growing businesses.
Built on our commerce-powered CRM and supported by a robust support network, partner ecosystem, and integration marketplace, Marketing Hub unifies our customers’ data right out of the box and gives them flexibility to grow within the platform as the business grows.
Continuing to Provide Connection
Creating a trustworthy environment with your customers is more important than ever. When making a purchase decision, customers need to trust that they can adopt our brand for not only ease of use, but also that we are here to support their needs.
Customer feedback will always be an important indicator of our performance. From our perspective, true magic happens when the market and industry experts also recognize that success.
This is why I’m extremely proud that, for the second year in a row, HubSpot has been named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for B2B Marketing Automation Platforms with Marketing Hub being evaluated.
We feel that being recognized as a Leader in B2B marketing automation by Gartner® is another point of validation that we’re doing what’s right for our customers, and a true testament to our continued commitment to delivering the best possible product, and trustworthy user experience, for our customers.
Source: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for B2B Marketing Automation Platforms, Rick Lafond, Julian Poulter, Matthew Wakeman, Jeffrey Cohen, Jeff Goldberg, 20 September 2022.
GARTNER and MAGIC QUADRANT are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Last Updated on November 17, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta Big Idea or Enduring Question: How do you replace null with specified values when working with Datasets or Recipes? Objectives: After reading this blog, you’ll be able to: Work with CASE Statements or coalesce formula Apply logic to replace null value
The post CRM Analytics: Replace Nulls With Specified Values appeared first on Automation Champion.

It’s super tiresome to ask your network (CEO, Investors, coworkers) to like and share social content. On top, it gives you a bad rep to create that much noise. But for a lot of us, it’s just to sweet of an opportunity. If you operate in a small market or are just getting started, it can make a big difference to have these additional likes and shares. As an experiment, I’ve launched GoSquad to make it easy to share content with your network. It’s still early innings and I need all the feedback I can get. Having said that, I think the tool can make a real difference for many of you. submitted by /u/memo_mar [link] [comments]

From the moment I launched The Flourish Market—a boutique that specializes in selling clothing, accessories, and gifts that have a bigger purpose—I knew that we would need to think about our holiday promotions differently. Given that most of the 200+ brands we partner with are B-corps or fair trade companies, our margins are already tighter than the average store. I felt the biggest discount we could afford to offer holiday shoppers would be 20 percent—which isn’t very exciting when the big box stores and even smaller boutiques would be offering 40-60 percent (or more) off. I’ve always been a big believer that when you can’t compete, you get creative. So I thought about what we had to offer. I thought about what aligned with our company mission. I thought about what would be exciting to our customers. And I came up with the idea for Grey Friday.The gist of Grey Friday is this: The week before Black Friday, we have our big promotion weekend when, instead of offering discounts, we offer 40-60 percent of the customer’s purchase back in free gifts. At different tiers of spending—$40, $75, $150, $250, and $500—customers get a different gift, plus all the gifts from the lower price tiers. I had this idea mere months before my first holiday season as a shop owner, and I decided to launch it on a whim. It was a resounding success, and we’ve done it every year since then—and every year, even during COVID, we’ve grown our total revenue that weekend by 40-50 percent.I love inspiring business owners to zig when other people are zagging. While I’m not saying you have to do this exact promotion, I want to share why it works for us and our customers in hopes of encouraging others to think differently about holiday deals this year, or for years to come.We figured out how to create more value with lessSomething that often surprises people about Grey Friday is that it costs us the same from a business perspective as offering a 20 percent discount—but creates much more value for the customer.Let’s say a customer is spending $150 that weekend. If we did a 20 percent discount, we’d lose $30 as a business, and the customer probably wouldn’t feel like they got an especially great deal. But, if I take that same $30 and think of it as my budget for free gifts, it can go shockingly far. For instance, last year customers spending $150 got a free bracelet, a pair of artisan earrings, and a cozy winter shawl. Because we’re buying these gifts in bulk from our artisan partners and our purchasing timing often aligns with promotions they’re doing, we’re able to get a great price, which allows us to offer so much. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Flourish Market (@theflourishmarket) The actual value of these products is higher than the $30 a customer might save with a 20 percent discount—if customers were buying these products off our shelves, they’d cost $80 or more. But, perhaps more importantly, the perceived value is higher. Our customers get so excited by the fact that, while they’re doing their holiday shopping, they get additional gifts for people on their list or to keep for themselves as a treat.We get customers before they’ve blown their holiday budgetAnother key factor in Grey Friday’s success is that we hold it the Friday before the major holiday shopping weekend.I always thought it was weird that Small Business Saturday is the day after Black Friday. My thinking is that, if you really want people to support small businesses, you need to get in front of them before they spend all their money at the major retailers. In fact, numerous customers thank me every year for running such a great promotion early, before they’re tempted to use their purchasing power on less meaningful gifts from larger businesses.  This has the side benefit of making the holiday season much more pleasant for my team. We’re still open on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday but, because we’ve already finished our major weekend, we don’t open early, and I don’t need all hands on deck. We split up work Thanksgiving week so that all of my employees get some meaningful time with their families.Of course we get people who come into the store Black Friday weekend and are confused by the fact that we aren’t offering a special. We never apologize, and instead use this as a moment to share what we stand for, explaining that we can’t compete with the big box stores and that we hope they look around at our artisan products and find gifts for the people on their list anyway. Plus, we can always encourage them to sign up for our email list so they’re notified about Grey Friday next year.We build a lot of excitement around it, and always deliverSo how do we promote Grey Friday to grow our sales each year? Of course we do all the classic marketing tactics. We tease that our big promotion is coming up on social media and do a big reveal of the free gifts. We email our list first thing that Friday to let them know the doors are open, and send them a last call email on Sunday (something I missed in the early years and now drives about 20 percent of our sales for the weekend). And we build a lot of excitement in the store to draw in downtown foot traffic, playing holiday music and offering free drinks for shoppers. But the biggest reason our numbers grow so much year after year is that we really deliver on the customer experience. I’ve noticed two big drivers for our sales growth. The first is that existing customers spend more. If a new customer has never experienced Grey Friday, they typically spend around $75 because they almost can’t believe it’s true. Once they realize that we really aren’t messing around with the free gifts, they plan their holiday shopping around it the next year, and spend triple or quadruple what they did before. The second growth driver is new customer acquisition through word of mouth. Grey Friday is almost like the best kept shopping secret that people love sharing with their friends and relatives.We try to keep this customer excitement going by making our gifts even better year after year. For instance, last year we created a custom product with one of our partners so that one of the gifts was something you literally couldn’t get anywhere else. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Flourish Market (@theflourishmarket) We tied our promotion to our purposeUltimately, like so many things in our business, this holiday promotion was never just about growing the bottom line. Our heart behind Grey Friday is to be able to deliver a thrilling experience to our customers while sending our artisan partners a heck of a lot of work. Instead of just offering a discount and taking a financial loss as a business, we’re able to pass that money along to help other businesses succeed. Being able to place orders for hundreds or thousands of units is life-changing for many of our partners. And we always make sure to share that impact with our customers—along with the impact on our own small business—so that they can feel even more excited about the purchases they made. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Flourish Market (@theflourishmarket) After sharing all these details on Grey Friday, my advice to other business owners may sound odd: When it comes to creating your best holiday promotion, don’t look around at what others are doing. Instead, think about what would be exciting to your specific customers and what you have the power to deliver this holiday season, then find the overlap.  The truth is, you will get some sales if you do a standard discount for Black Friday or Small Business Saturday. However, you could be doing triple or quadruple that amount if you get creative in delivering something that creates even more value for your customers.

Surging inflation and interest rate increases are making American consumers cautious about spending. According to JungleScout’s Consumer Trends Report, 55% of consumers admit that the current inflation has impacted their gifting and spending plans for this year. Such trends can spell trouble for brick-and-mortar stores and eCommerce sites alike. This piece discusses the challenges posed…
The post Is Inflation Affecting Your eCommerce? appeared first on Benchmark Email.

submitted by /u/ejr201171 [link] [comments]

https://www.ledigitalmarketing.net/how-businesses-are-bringing-in-leads-in-2022-2023/ submitted by /u/Christopher-Tilley [link] [comments]