Brand & Capture

Your customers are fond of you for a reason: You help them solve a problem. Something you sell makes a positive contribution to their lives. Think aboout it for a second: By virtue of your very existence, others are better off. That's no small feat.

Despite your perfectly crafted copy, contacts will still unsubscribe from your email communications. Whether you are just getting started or are a seasoned professional, opt-outs are a harsh reality email marketers must accept. Constant Contact recently surveyed 1400 consumers to find out the most common reasons people unsubscribe. Here is what they found out:

When inbound marketers discuss A/B split testing, they’re usually talking email marketing. But there are more areas of inbound marketing that can benefit from a little testing. Facebook advertising is one such area.

Take a good look at your customers. No, really. Not their "personas," them. Who are they? Why did they choose you, and how happy are they with what you've done for them? Which ones do you consider to be ideal customers and why? Now match those observations to your assumptions about your buyer personas and be honest with yourself. How accurate are they now? Most of us could use a little tune-up.

Pinterest has rapidly become one of the top social media sites, and since it launched it’s business accounts, more and more companies have been using it to grow their audiences. If you read my previous post, you know there are several don’ts for B2B Pinterest accounts, but you may not know the best practices for gaining a significant following. Here, we show you how to increase your Pinterest followers and, thus, your potential clients with our list of do’s.

There’s a lot of momentum building behind email marketing efforts. More and more people are using email; in fact, according to a study conducted by The Relevancy Group, 93 percent of consumers check their email daily. Consequently, email marketing has become a crucial way for businesses to engage and target customers and prospects online. According to a report by eMarketer, 97 percent of small businesses are using email marketing to connect with customers.

Facebook is set to make many changes this year. With Graph Search rolling out and Emoticons and activity moods now inducted into status updates, Facebook has come through with yet another announcement: the Facebook Hashtag. This feature, similar to the way the hashtag operates on Twitter, will possibly be the hottest new targeting tool on the market. 

Most digital marketers recognize that online reviews are important—and they are becoming more so all the time. User-generated reviews on sites like Urban Spoon, TripAdvisor and Yelp have already started shaping consumer purchasing habits, for the simple reason that consumers are increasingly coming to seek—and to trust—these persuasive Web-based notices. But what if what's being said about you or your products online isn't exactly good? Effective marketers should know how to defend their clients against online defamation and bad review profiles by harnessing the power of user-generated content. To learn how, read on!

In traditional marketing, much-coveted sales leads were immediately “thrown over the wall” to the sales team, which would then be tasked with following up, qualifying and—hopefully—securing the sale. Today’s marketing mix is vastly different and includes non-traditional forms of marketing, such as content marketing, that have changed the way sales leads are generated.

Everybody's talking about sales and marketing alignment these days because it's still a big problem in many companies. Sales and marketing people aren't on the same page when it comes to strategy, process, messaging, lead quality or tactics. But what if you didn't have to worry about that because sales and marketing skills are merged into one person? What if you could find a person who is comfortable with both disciplines and motivated by a passion for success as measured by both sales and marketing? Does that person even exist? Well, if he or she does exist, here's what you have in a nutshell.