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Advertising on TikTok: A Marketer's Guide
Ocean Spray was a company that had been around for some 90 years. It knew its market. It knew its product. Building a viral smash success on a fresh platform seemed like a distant dream. Yet, thanks to TikTok, that’s exactly what happened. It all began when an Idaho potato farmer named Nathan Apodaca posted a video of himself on a skateboard, zooming along a highway, with Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” blaring in the background. As if this wasn’t an unusual enough setting, he was drinking a big bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice at the same time. The video took off like gangbusters. Ocean Spray gained some 15 billion media impressions, enough to make a noticeable improvement in the company’s overall sales for the quarter. It’s proof that, if you haven’t already engaged with TikTok marketing, you’re missing one of the biggest opportunities since the advent of social media. But a TikTok marketing strategy still requires forethought, learning from the best examples, and a strategic approach. That’s especially true if you want to maximize your chances of achieving viral success. How is TikTok changing marketing? For the unfamiliar, TikTok is a social media app built on short-form videos, often with viral soundbites and song selections playing in the background. It’s not only trendy but capable of building its own trends — many of which can look downright strange if you haven’t used the app yourself. TikTok is changing marketing due to a few factors. First, its reach is nearly unprecedented. It’s reached over 2 billion downloads, according to Forbes. In the U.S. alone, it has over 100 million active users every single month. But it’s more than raw totals. The short-video format has connected with the smartphone culture in a novel way. Consider all that TikTok has achieved: Opening “viral” success to the masses: YouTube, Vine, and the Internet as a whole made viral videos famous. Viral videos, in turn, made mass appeal available to anyone who could put together a remarkable video. TikTok, it seems, has achieved viral engagement at scale. It’s never been easier to create a video that “blows up.” TikTok’s algorithms give even small-following users the ability to hit widespread success if their video earns high engagement rates in the early goings. This means that while mega-influencers are highly successful, TikTok success is just as wide open to micro-influencers. Putting trends into hyperdrive: We’re all familiar with social media trends. The ALS “Ice Bucket Challenge” in 2014 raised $114 million for ALS services, reaching almost every celebrity with a social media account. TikTok’s unique approach to promoting videos makes it possible to almost engineer smaller trends at will. Don’t worry — below, we’ll tackle some examples of how brands have achieved this. Creating a direct conduit to a younger audience: Millennials were the first generation growing into maturity with smartphones. But they’re getting older. TikTok is largely Gen Z-driven. Over half of the population of Gen Z is on the platform, as opposed to 36% of millennials. As Gen Z grows in influence and purchasing power, TikTok is becoming the go-to medium for reaching them. These are just three points demonstrating how TikTok is changing marketing. But the best way to figure that out is to experience a viral hit yourself. After all, TikTok isn’t just about silly and fun trends and enjoying yourself. If you do it right, you can use TikTok for business marketing, just like the world’s top brands. Is TikTok good for marketing? If you’re coming from a traditional marketing mindset, the average TikTok marketing campaign might look strange at first. Guacamole dances? Dressing up in costumes to order burritos? Again, more on that later. But these trends only reflect the shifting demographics of social media engagement. Average engagement rates with micro-influencers on TikTok, for example, outpace those on YouTube at a rate of 18% to 1.63%. TikTok’s unpolished, short-form videos tend to create the feeling of connection between influencers and followers. This is particularly true with the prevalence of behind-the-scenes videos. Many top YouTubers put together highly polished, edited videos that skew closer to traditional television. TikTok feels more informal. For this reason, even YouTube has tried to cash in on the short-form video trend, allowing its own users to post small, bite-sized updates. In other words, marketing on TikTok has become so successful that it’s even starting to influence how the other social media platforms approach their user base. TikTok marketing examples Not everyone on TikTok is doing a great job. Some brands may feel a bit like they’re shouting into the wind. Other brands just seem to have a knack for it. So what separates the brands that know how to do it from the brands that don't? A solid TikTok marketing strategy usually emphasizes two elements: engaging influencers who already have a substantial following and creating an incentive to share and engage. In each of the TikTok advertising examples below, you’ll see how large companies reached out to influencers big and small to create viral hits using these two elements. 1. #Boorito from Chipotle To capitalize on Halloween, Chipotle initiated a “#Boorito” campaign. The premise was simple: Order your burrito in a Halloween outfit for a discounted price. Chipotle gave away free burrito orders for a year to the TikTok users who could generate the most engagement via TikTok likes. Additionally, the brand reached out to influencers like Brittany Broski to get the word out. By the time #Boorito hit, Chipotle was already a TikTok marketing veteran. The #Boorito campaign even outdid its previous campaign, #GuacDance, which generated 430 million views in just six days. 2. Dunkin’ and Charli D’Amelio You don’t have to create a hashtag like Chipotle did to achieve success. Dunkin’ gave D’Amelio an excuse to post on TikTok by creating a “Charli” drink — and then D’Amelio posted about it to her TikTok page, including how the name of the drink looked on her receipt. That was all – a simple, direct interaction with a social media influencer. The results? Dunkin saw its app downloads spike by 57%, and cold brew coffees experienced a sales boost of 20%. 3. Warner Music’s promotions in Argentina and Mexico A company doesn’t have to enlist an A-list TikTok influencer like Charlie D’Amelio to see results. Some companies have good experiences with micro-influencers who have small, engaged followings. Other companies strike a balance somewhere in between. For Warner Music, promoting Justin Quiles’ #DjNoPareRemix meant finding influencers who would be more relevant in Argentina and Mexico. Rather than opt for one major celebrity, they chose six distinct TikTok influencers to spread the word. Across the six videos the influencers produced, the promotion gathered 1.5 million likes with an average engagement rate of 17%. How to plan a TikTok marketing strategy Ask yourself this: How do you start any new marketing strategy? Do you feel like you’re slapping it together last-minute, or do you have the systems in place to carry out your plan with stunning precision? If it feels more like the former than the latter, let’s get back to basics. Here’s how you can create a TikTok marketing strategy, even if you’re working from scratch. Bring your project under one dashboard: Before you do anything, get organized. A TikTok marketing campaign will include several different elements, from reaching out to influencers to planning strategy. Use a solution like Wrike to get an entire team on the same page. This will also distribute easily-digestible timesheets you can assign to team members. Centralize your communication: One TikTok campaign isn’t going to be enough. Sure, you might have the success of an “Ocean Spray” on the first try. But chances are, you’re going to have learning experiences along the way. To better adapt for future campaigns, centralize your communication with marketing project management and avoid siloing your teams. This will help everyone digest the appropriate feedback for future improvement. Start with a template: Even if TikTok is new to you, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Work from a marketing campaign template to automate much of the process of getting started. Create a schedule: Posting to TikTok should include a schedule, just as you’d approach any content or social media marketing campaign. Use an editorial calendar template, so you don’t have to start from scratch here, either. Use what’s worked in the past: Have you had success on YouTube? Instagram? Take lessons from those. You can start with social media calendar templates from our digital marketing offerings to easily replicate what’s worked for you in the past. Research your hashtags: It’s poor form to create your own hashtags on a whim. You have to know what’s already trending. What are people already searching for? Because TikTok’s algorithms sufficiently randomize a video feed, feel free to use high-engagement hashtags that would otherwise seem to have high competition. In fact, adding hashtags with over 1 million mentions is common and often effective. Research the appropriate influencers: If you’re going the TikTok influencer route, your budget will have a lot to say here. But even micro-influencers can be well worth the investment. Platforms like Grin and Upfluence will introduce you to the influencers who are relevant to your target demographics. Creative incentives: In each of the TikTok advertising examples above, experienced brands used a two-pronged approach to their campaigns: influencers and incentives. Influencers help get eyes on your campaign, while incentives drive home the need for engagement. Put it all together, and you have a recipe for consistency. Keep in mind that not every campaign will hit. Some will generate a little light engagement, while others may take off and develop lives of their own. And it’s not always easy to predict which will be which. TikTok boasts some of the highest engagement rates around. But you won’t find out the full potential of your brand until you take the time to consistently create content that sets you up for success. Why use Wrike to create a TikTok marketing campaign? TikTok and Wrike. Never thought the two words would go together? You’d be surprised. Any campaign benefits from proper planning, after all. And once you’ve read our Ultimate Guide to Marketing, you’ll better understand how our project management tools can make every stage of your campaign easier. Think in terms of building a system, not a goal. As bestselling author James Clear advocates, putting the proper systems into place is far more effective for long-term success than chasing goals. As Clear says, “Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win.” Even if you’re new to TikTok marketing, having a system in place immediately puts you at an advantage over those without clear direction. Consider all you can accomplish even before you start engaging with influencers and creating engagement incentives: Creating a plan: As the old axiom goes, failing to plan is planning to fail. We’ve previously written about creating global marketing strategies that incorporate the four Ps of marketing: product, pricing, promotion, and place. With TikTok, the emphasis is on promotion (engaging influencers), and place (getting more eyes on your videos via the TikTok algorithm and early, high-engagement performance). You can double down on your TikTok campaigns by never posting anything haphazardly. Engaging with TikTok trends: How do you know what kind of video will get engagement? By observing for yourself. Follow the same accounts as your target audience — this will get TikTok’s algorithms sending you similar content as your audience enjoys. Observe the hashtags and the principles behind the most successful viral videos. What do they have in common? Which fits your brand the best? How can your brand come to replicate and expand on these ideas? Put it all together with an omnichannel marketing plan and you’ll find ways to drive more engagement than ever before. But remember the unique quirks of TikTok, its algorithm for sending users videos to their feed, and how you need to have a plan for driving engagement on every video for the platform to send it to more user feeds. Apply those lessons consistently and you’ll have a recipe for an eventual viral video. And even if it’s not the one you thought would take off, remember: It’s all part of the overarching strategy for TikTok marketing success.
Graphic Design for Beginners: Top Tips
With so many brands vying for customer attention in a sea of digital content, it’s more important than ever to use effective images that draw people to your message and brand. But having Photoshop loaded on your work laptop doesn’t automatically make you a designer, and a bad visual can annoy viewers (at best) and attract the wrong kind of attention (at worst). Good design is not something you can master overnight. There's simply too much to learn. The principles of brand identity, layout, and white space, color and typography, how to convey a message — not to mention complex design software. So how do you, as a non-designer, avoid common mistakes and navigate a suite of design applications to create eye-catching visuals without getting bogged down by too much information? We've collected a library of quick tips, cheat sheets, and online courses to help you master the basics and design beautiful creative assets for your business in no time. Why learn graphic design? Why should you spend time learning about graphic design for beginners and consider this as a career field? 1. Graphic design skills are in demand For starters, it’s an in-demand career path. Research suggests that the job market for graphic designers is expected to increase by 4.6% between the years 2016 and 2026. CareerFoundry echoes a similar sentiment, placing graphic designers at number seven on a list of the top 10 most in-demand design job titles for 2022. 2. Graphic design offers plenty of career options Another perk of learning graphic design for beginners is that it’s applicable to just about every industry. Graphic designers can assist with a variety of services, including business promotion, software, trade shows, and product packaging, to name a few. And because there are so many different types of services graphic designers can help with, the graphic design skillset is relevant across all industries, whether you work with product or service-based clients. 3. Graphic design work keeps you on your toes While some professionals prefer a consistent day-to-day workflow, graphic design means every day is different. New projects and work vary across the board, so there’s never a dull moment. The types of tasks that you work on will differ depending on client needs — one moment, you could be working on a logo design, and the next a full branding guide. There’s no telling what each day will bring, but it’s guaranteed to be a mix of types of work, unique tasks, and clients spread across industries and sizes. 4. Graphic design lets you flex your creative muscles Graphic design provides the opportunity to tap into your creative brain, and Entrepreneur suggests that reaching our creative potential in our work is paramount to feeling fulfilled and living a meaningful life. Sure, there are technical skills in design, such as using particular software systems and understanding design basics. But good graphic design also requires creative expertise. Coming up with new and unique designs means you’ll need to tap into your creative brain as much as possible. Graphic design courses for beginners Are you convinced and ready to learn graphic design? It can be tempting to dive in and try to learn everything all at once but don’t overwhelm yourself. We’ve rounded up some graphic design for beginners courses to help you get started. Free graphic design courses Graphic Design Workshop For Beginners Professional Advertising & Graphic Design [Mascot/Logo] Graphic Design for Entrepreneurs…Who Can’t Draw Graphic Design Basics Introduction to Graphic Design History Graphic Design Paid graphic design courses Become a Graphic Designer Graphic Design Basics: Core Principles for Visual Design Introduction to Graphic Design: Illustrator Basic design fundamentals everyone should know Want to take your learning a few steps further? Let's dive into some basic design fundamentals and resources for you to uplevel in these areas. Typography Your choice of typeface gives your design character, in addition to legible text. A stylish font is pointless if it’s unreadable, and using too many different fonts can be overwhelming to the eye. In general, limiting yourself to two to three complementary fonts in your design is recommended. Color theory Achieving harmony with color is essential for an eye-pleasing design. You don’t want your design to be either too bland or too chaotic. Some basic formulas for color harmony include using analogous colors (three colors that appear side-by-side on a 12-part color wheel), complementary colors (any two colors that are directly opposite each other on the color wheel), and a color scheme based on nature. Hierarchy What’s the most important element of your design? Don’t overwhelm your headline by overlaying it on a bright, bold image, for instance. Prioritize each of your design elements and keep that priority in mind when placing them, determining size and color, etc. Grids and balance Grids create guidelines for how visual elements should be positioned within your design layout and help determine proper proportion and balance. The golden ratio, or the ‘“rule of thirds,” is commonly used with grids to create an eye-pleasing result. And by placing certain elements outside of the grid, designers can naturally draw the viewer’s eye to these break-outs. Another way to learn graphic design? Study others’ work Start a collection of designs that you like, taking the time to define what you like about them and why. By analyzing successful designs and adopting certain elements into your own creative assets (without copying the design outright, of course), you can learn what works and quickly improve your visuals. Some common design mistakes to avoid: not using enough white space, placing too much text on one line, and using too many fonts and colors. Additional resources: Fundamental design principles for non-designers Want to learn graphic design? 9 tips and tricks for beginners The designer's guide to grid theory Typography design: Rules and terms every designer must know 10 basic elements of design Logo design: 15 golden rules for crafting logos How to design the perfect business logo (infographic) Graphic design software: Three options (and how to learn them) When it comes to software for graphic design, there are a few choices on the market that seem to reign supreme – and they’re all from Adobe. Below, we’re breaking down some tips and helpful resources for each of the most popular options: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. And when you’ve improved your graphic design chops and need to manage the ins and outs of your creative projects? Adobe Creative Cloud integrates seamlessly with Wrike. Photoshop Tips for beginners Unfamiliar with Photoshop? We have a few quick tips and extra resources to help you get started with this popular design software. Crop your images to create the best composition. If you find the horizon is off, you can level it by dragging any corner of the image box to rotate your photo. Use the Healing Brush to erase any spots on your image left from specks of dust or scratches on the camera lens. Bump up the contrast by brightening highlights and deepening shadows using the Levels window. Go easy on the color saturation. You can boost saturation to make your image more colorful, but too much can make it look glaring and overwrought. Additional resources: 2022 Adobe Photoshop keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet 5 easy Photoshop tips for beginners 18 quick Photoshop tips for beginners 10 Photoshop tips and tricks for beginners 120 Photoshop tips, tricks, and fixes Illustrator tips for beginners Illustrator is another popular software option used to create vector graphics. Vector graphics can be enlarged without compromising the integrity of the original image, so you get a crisp image no matter the final size (unlike bitmap graphics created by Photoshop, which can look jagged and blurry when scaled up). Additional resources: Adobe Illustrator cheatsheet Keyboard shortcuts for Illustrator 10 essential Adobe Illustrator tips and tools for beginners 11 quick tips for Adobe Illustrator The absolute beginner's guide to Adobe Illustrator InDesign tips for beginners InDesign is built specifically for designing printed materials, including brochures, ads, business cards, books, and more. It’s the tool you use to put the visual elements you create in Photoshop and Illustrator together into one place or publication. One of the trickiest aspects of print design is being artistic while also making sure your work can be printed without any technical issues messing things up. You'll need to understand things like bleed, file format, image resolution, measurements, and more. Additional resources: Beginners guides to InDesign 2022 Adobe InDesign CC keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet InDesign tips I wish I'd known when starting out 14 little-known InDesign tips Adobe InDesign tips and tricks Take your creative campaigns to the next level Of course, having the right graphic design chops is crucial. But, when it comes to organizing your work, using collaborative campaign management software helps ensure that everyone on your design team is using the latest, approved creative assets and that what’s produced is in line with brand guidelines. It’ll save you hours (and headaches) and result in a better finished product. Wrike’s all-in-one solution for creative teams streamlines the administrative side of creative projects and includes proofing and approvals and an extension for Adobe Creative Cloud. Start your free trial to give it a try, with nothing to download or install.
Top Tips for Creating a Twitter Marketing Strategy
Twitter can be complex. Similarly, the techniques and methodologies that brands use to implement their Twitter marketing strategy add yet another layer of difficulty. While some marketing project managers prefer to follow Twitter best practices and cross their fingers, others know that putting a strategy down on (virtual) paper ensures growth and success on the platform long-term. For those who prefer to know what they’re doing on Twitter and why their efforts (and budget) matter, having a strong Twitter marketing strategy is a no-brainer. In this guide, we’ve answered your most frequently asked questions about Twitter marketing, provided a curated list of essential tips, and listed the exact tools you need to achieve your next benchmarks. What is a Twitter marketing strategy? A Twitter marketing strategy is an action plan that aligns with your company’s concrete goals for this particular platform. A good Twitter marketing strategy involves creating and publishing content that will attract new followers and improve your brand recognition. Why is Twitter good for marketing? Twitter is not as creative as other platforms like Facebook and Instagram. However, it does have an advertising audience of 353 million and is the first in line for customer service as far as social media apps go. Not only is Twitter a must-have social media tool, but it’s also effective for engaging individuals, sharing time-sensitive content, and staying up to date with what’s going on in the world as it relates to your business. How to create a Twitter marketing strategy Despite its fast-paced nature, Twitter still requires a bit of strategic planning and discipline to get the most out of it. Not to mention the fact that it’s important to be prepared for all the unexpected conversations that happen on Twitter. Having a strategy in place will help you respond to any situation that may arise while also building a strong marketing and sales funnel for your brand. Here’s everything you need to know to successfully implement a Twitter marketing strategy. 1. Evaluate your current strategy You should check your existing social media accounts both on and off Twitter to make sure they're in good standing. This will help identify any issues that need addressing now before you launch the next phase. 2. Define clear goals Having clear goals is the first step to achieving success on any social media platform. You should create goals that are specific, measurable, and time-bound. These should align with your company's greater objectives and be realistic about the resources you have to dedicate to the project. You’ll also need to get specific about which metrics you’ll use to measure progress and how often you’ll check in with goals. Remember that there are a ton of different metrics available but not all of them will be applicable to your particular goals. 3. Check out the competition By carefully analyzing the accounts of your competitors, you can learn about their weaknesses and develop a stronger strategy. Look for common themes, tweet frequency, and their most popular tweets to better understand what your audiences are looking for. You can also use this information to improve on what they’re already putting out there in your own content. Pro tip: You can also get digital marketing inspiration from original strategy examples found elsewhere that you can make your own on Twitter. 4. Create a Twitter guide Your company’s customized Twitter guide should include a code of conduct and a clear set of style guidelines anyone can replicate. First, follow a clear responsibilities policy to ensure that everyone is on board with how you’ll deal with the variety of scenarios you may find yourself in on Twitter, which can be a well-known hangout for pot stirrers and ‘trolls’. Even something as simple as accidentally having multiple team members answer the same questions can create a lot of confusion and lead to unproductive discussions. Following actionable guidelines will prevent these common roadblocks from happening in the first place. Next, remember that a good social media style guide is also helpful to keep your team's communications on track. This will prevent branding mistakes and minimize miscommunication. Keep in mind that your brand personality should be consistent across all platforms. It should also communicate your company's values and goals. 5. Create your Twitter profile Having a professional Twitter profile can help strengthen your brand and inform your audience. You also want to make sure that your handle is consistent across all platforms. Here are the steps you’ll need to take in order to get started: Create a handle. Your username is the first thing that people will see when they look at your profile. It should include your company's name and other recognizable details. Add a profile photo. Make sure your imagery keeps to the correct dimensions and is high-resolution. Add a header image. Your profile should also feature a clean and prominent header image. It can help provide insight into your company culture or reflect on current campaigns. Write your bio. A well-written and snappy bio is also important to stand out from the crowd. You can also use a tagline or a creative image to highlight your brand personality. Include a link. Send click-throughs to your homepage or a dedicated landing page for Twitter audiences. Choose a location. One of the most important elements of your profile is your location. This is very important for small businesses as they want their customers to be able to find them offline. Add a birthday. Use the date your company was founded or an important launch date. 6. Start a Twitter content calendar A social media content calendar is a great way to align your content across all your channels and identify potential conflicts. It can also help you plan ahead and capitalize on any opportunities that arise. Another benefit of planning out your calendar is that it will help you determine if you're sharing a balanced mix of content. Although you can schedule some tweets to go out ahead of time, the social aspect of social media will still require you to respond to DMs, mentions, and retweets promptly. 7. Schedule some tweets ahead of time Get ahead of the competition by scheduling your tweets to go out on optimal days and times. Doing so will allow you to maximize the engagement and visibility of every post. Unfortunately, you can't always schedule 100% of your tweets or else the platform may flag you as spam. However, it's possible to save time by pre-scheduling content that's already planned in advance. 8. Create a monitoring plan Once your marketing strategy is in place, it's time to regularly evaluate your progress and set goals against those that you set. Use the same project management platform to evaluate your Twitter data and run reports to keep everything in one accessible place. 9. Use social listening Twitter isn't just about speaking. It's also about listening. Through social listening, you can learn about the opinions of other people about your products and services. It can help you develop a more authentic and loyal customer base. 10. Consider paid ads Paid ads aren’t right for everyone, but they can help your new Twitter marketing strategy gain more traction faster. Twitter Ads are a great way to target specific audiences. They allow you to measure the effectiveness of your campaign and find the right messages for your brand. Even if someone doesn't follow your brand or hashtags, a promoted tweet can still show up in their timeline. You can also interact with them in the same way as organic content. 11. Include link tracking Just like you link track on your sales pages, email newsletters, and other social media, Twitter offers another way to obtain data on customer buying journeys. Track the link in your bio as well as any company website links you tweet out. The metrics provided by link tracking tools allow you to monitor how people navigate to your website and measure the effectiveness of your campaign management. They're also useful for analyzing your bottom line as you improve your conversions and traffic over time. 12. Use all of Twitter’s features This one may take some time, but it’s worth noting that the best way to maximize your Twitter marketing strategy is to use every last tool the platform has to offer. For example, did you know Twitter allows users to host live chats? Use a live chat to discuss a topic, ask customers for their opinions, or collaborate with a brand partner on something you're working on. Twitter marketing tips There are countless tips on the internet about how to do Twitter well. The truth is most of your success depends on trial and error plus consistency over time. Here are some of our curated Twitter marketing tips that we’ve either used or seen work firsthand. They serve as a good jumping-off point for any foundational strategy. Start with one, then mix the rest in over time. Think big-picture. One of the most important factors to consider is how Twitter fits into your overall social media strategy. Assign daily supervision. Busy accounts may require a team member’s attention to monitor them every day or even every hour. Have a backup team member for every single account in case one is out-of-office. Plan one month out. A 30-day content plan will help you grow your Twitter following fast. It will also help you track your social media campaigns and analyze what resonates with your audience. Use lists. Through lists, you can get in touch with the conversations that matter to you most. These feeds are curated by the accounts that are most likely to have influential discussions. Develop your voice. Although you can use images and videos to attract followers, a well-written and compelling voice is very important to have on Twitter. Tweet authentically. Don't send tweets that sound like they're coming from a robot or a script. Instead, communicate clearly and politely. Stand out. Follow a unique and original message whenever you post on social media. Doing so will make your Twitter content more engaging. Use polls. Twitter polls allow users to pose questions with multiple choice answers. Gather valuable feedback and opinions about your customer preferences and favorite products. Add photos and videos. Visual assets can help you convey a message more effectively. They can also be used to reinforce an important point or highlight a chart or infographic. Use hashtags. Hashtags are a great way to boost your visibility and discoverability on Twitter. This feature is essential for new accounts. Add branded content. For example, creating a branded hashtag is a great way to organize and promote content about your business. It can also be used to search for user-generated content related to your products. Track trends. Follow trending topics to get notified about new posts and hop on relevant themes. Think before posting. Although most Twitter users rely on the mobile app, search engine preview snippets of profiles may show recently deleted tweets. So think through each message before you hit publish — otherwise, it may come up on Google days, weeks, or months from now! Engage, engage, engage. It's important to create a two-way channel of communication on Twitter to engage your audience. Creating content that encourages your followers to interact with each other is also important. Get verified. A verified profile helps prevent people from being confused with fake and duplicate accounts. Twitter marketing tools to get you started There are three main marketing tools you’ll need to get started, regardless of your goals or strategy. Data measuring and reporting Asset storage Project management platform Without the help of data measuring and reporting, brands aren’t able to perform well on Twitter. The feedback from key metrics such as retweets helps marketers better understand their audience, grow their following, and reach as many new timelines as possible. Asset storage is another essential Twitter marketing tool. Between branded links, third-party links, photos, videos, GIFs, and more, having one central location where all of your Twitter content assets are stored is both convenient and strategic. Last but not least, the most important Twitter marketing tool you can use is a project management platform. Twitter requires you to create content, respond to public and private messages, track data, and keep up with the latest features. A great project management tool will allow you to do all of that in one accessible place so you can stay on top of all the moving parts while focusing on your chosen strategy. Why use Wrike to build your Twitter marketing campaign Like other social media platforms, finding success on Twitter requires a strategy and an intentional approach. That is why using a marketing project management tool is so important. Wrike's marketing project management software lets you track and communicate with your team across all your campaigns in one place. Not only does it help break down silos and make communication easier, but it also gives you a 360° view of your Twitter and related social media campaigns, allowing you to see all of them in one place. Wrike's software also helps you track communication with your team across all your campaigns in one place, so you’re always on the same page, even with Twitter’s fast-paced conversations. If last-minute tweets or replies need approval, team members can easily see your feedback and loop approvers into ongoing conversations via @mentions, which can help cut down on review cycles. For productivity, Wrike's marketing project management software helps you streamline your processes and achieve your goals. Doing so will increase the visibility and efficiency of any strategy you implement. With all of Twitter’s moving parts, having full transparency into your workflows is essential since bottlenecks are that much harder to resolve. If you run a social media strategy on any other app, you already know that project management for digital marketing is different from other project management disciplines. That is why Wrike developed flexible workflows that make it possible to eliminate the guesswork and get more done in less time. Twitter has many complex moving parts with real-time feedback, so solid data reporting is mission-critical to getting it right. Wrike's marketing project management software features dynamic reports that allow you to visualize and gather business intelligence quickly. Ready to take action on your new Twitter marketing strategy? Get started today by organizing your social media plan into assigned tasks and timelines using Wrike’s two-week free trial.
The Most Common Marketing Mistakes: How to Avoid Them
There is so much involved in starting a business, it’s understandable when things fall through the cracks. Unfortunately, marketing is one area that many new business owners neglect or treat as more of an afterthought. Developing a marketing strategy is just as important as developing a budget. It is a key element in growing a customer base and generating revenue. This is not a simple process; mistakes are often made.
5 Must-Haves in a Campaign Management Software
Understanding your customers helps you understand your brand and messaging. Customers are a direct reflection of what you're doing right, and who your brand is resonating with. Having a campaign management software that can act as a CRM, provide real-time information about your prospects, as well as manage and track your email campaigns can be the driving force in improving those MQL numbers.
How to Track your Digital Channels with Digital Marketing KPIs
In the good old days of digital marketing circa 1971 (when the first ever email was sent), the best indicator of campaign success was whether or not someone looked at what you put out into the world. Now that technology is more advanced and the market is flooded with content, marketers need to use a more sophisticated approach. Enter digital marketing KPIs. Today, agency and marketing directors use digital marketing project KPIs to improve profit, streamline resources, and prove return on investment to their clients. Keep reading to discover the definitions, examples, and tools top marketers use to remain competitive in today’s digital landscape. What are digital marketing KPIs? KPI stands for key performance indicator which is also known as performance metrics. A digital marketing key performance indicator is what marketers use to measure the success of a particular strategy or marketing channel. The KPI or KPIs you choose will depend on what your goal is for the project. Marketers will often choose one or two primary KPIs to support their main goal and a handful of relevant secondary KPIs to support any additional objectives. For example, let’s say you run a social media campaign on Twitter and your goal is to increase your engagement percentage within your existing audience. Your primary KPIs will be the number of comments and retweets each original tweet receives. There are three main categories of digital marketing KPIs to know: 1. Awareness Awareness is all about getting your brand in front of as many new people as possible. If your brand is already established, the next challenge is to help potential customers learn about new products or services they might be interested in. Common marketing tactics in this phase include cold emailing and calling. 2. Conversion The goal of this phase is to make a sale. Marketers often do this by building long-term relationships and trust. Content like blog posts and podcasts with problem-solving advice for the audience works well for this stage. 3. Analysis After you make a sale you can use analysis KPIs to determine how much you spent in resources to acquire each new customer. This information will inform your next campaign. Why set KPIs in digital marketing? KPIs in digital marketing prove return on investment to clients and stakeholders. They also help you measure progress, streamline processes, and quantify what would otherwise be intangible marketing benefits. Using KPIs in digital marketing will help you better understand why something does or does not work for your particular brand or strategy. Without KPIs, marketing agencies run the risk of throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. If your agency does not assert its value and authority through actual proof, it’s hard to get or keep clients long-term. KPIs translate into concrete numbers that prove what you’re doing is getting real results. Who sets KPIs in marketing? At an agency, a marketing or agency director will set the KPIs. Otherwise, the responsibility falls on the campaign manager. Whoever chooses the KPIs also has to come up with a plan for tracking them. They may adopt related marketing tools and habits to make sure results are consistently recorded and monitored throughout the lifetime of each campaign. Agency project management tools such as Wrike can help streamline these processes. Users can easily assign monitoring and reporting tasks to designated teammates so that nothing slips through the cracks. Marketing KPI examples Marketing KPIs differ from project to project, platform to platform, and goal to goal. Use these most common marketing KPI examples below as a jumping-off point: Email marketing KPIs 1. Number of emails successfully delivered, opened, and/or replied to What it is: The total of all emails interacted with compared to the total sent. Why you need it: This information tells marketers if their messages are getting through to inboxes. It also demonstrates whether or not the subject line is persuasive enough and if the campaign promotes further engagement. How to measure it: Use an email marketing campaign software to bypass spam filters and track open rates. 2. Embedded link and CTA button click-through rates What it is: The percentage of people who have both opened your emails and clicked the link or button inside. Why you need it: The click-through rate shows how effective your offers or calls to action are. How to measure it: Add a link tracking app to test components like CTA messages, colors, and placement. 3. Social shares and forwards What it is: The number of times a post has been shared or sent to other people from social media. Why you need it: Sharing is a high-value form of engagement that gets your posts in front of more people which is great for increasing impressions and expanding your audience. How to measure it: Most social media apps include this information within your Analytics. Social media KPIs 1. Number of followers versus number of unfollowers What it is: The total number of people who have followed your account that day or week compared to the number of people who have unfollowed your account in the same. Why you need it: Ideally you'll have more followers than unfollowers but this KPI shows whether or not your content is targeting the correct audience and is interesting enough to keep their attention. How to measure it: Your number of followers is publicly available at the top of your social media profile. However, you may need to use a third-party app to track unfollowers. 2. Likes, comments, and shares What it is: These are the top forms of engagement for any social media post regardless of what platform it's on. Why you need it: Better engagement equals higher conversion rates, steadier audience growth, and stronger relationships over time.= How to measure it: This information is made publicly available on most social media platforms. 3. New impressions What it is: The number of times your content was organically shown to someone on the platform whether or not they interacted with it. Why you need it: This social media KPI demonstrates reach, which you should aim to increase over time through paid ads, better engagement, and more followers. How to measure it: Creator analytics or a behind-the-scenes app will show your new impressions by day, week, or month. Content marketing KPIs 1. Unique visits What it is: The total number of people (or IP addresses) clicking on your website within a given time frame. Why you need it: Unique visits document the volume of traffic over time, which is useful for selling products and services. However, some unique visits might be from bots which is why it's critical to also track engagement and conversions at the same time. How to measure it: Website analytics platforms like Google help users track this data after it’s set up, which means historical data will not be available. 2. Average time on page What it is: The average amount of time all visitors (both unique and returning) spend on each individual web page. Why you need it: Your goal should be to make the average time on page high because it will likely lead to better sales conversion rate. Plus it shows that your content is relevant to your audience. How to measure it: Website analytics tools will help you measure it. 3. Link and CTA button click-through rates What it is: The percentage at which all site visitors click on links and buttons. Why you need it: Most website links and buttons are tied to sales or important data capture such as email newsletters. Having a high rate of success means that your offers and audience are in alignment. How to measure it: Website analytics tools or third party link tracking apps are best. SEO KPIs 1. Keyword search engine ranking What it is: How high your website ranks for a specific keyword or phrase within popular search engines. Why you need it: Your goal should be to rank number 1 on Google and Bing. Or on the first page, at the very least, so that more people will find and click on your website. How to measure it: Type in your keyword phrase into a search engine to see if it shows up or use a tool like SEMRush for more advanced analytics. 2. Organic traffic What it is: Site traffic from anything other than paid ads. Why you need it: High rates of organic traffic means that more people are finding your products and services by simply searching related questions or words, which indicates that your SEO strategy is working. How to measure it: Use a website analytics tool.3. Link click-through rates What it is: The rate at which people are clicking on paid search advertisements or web pages that appear organically in search results. Why you need it: For paid ads, the link click-through rate shows how effective your copy is. How to measure it: Website analytics and third-party apps help you track individual links. Also, whichever search engine advertisement platform you use will likely track this data automatically. PPC KPIs 1. Click rate What it is: Percentage of people who see your ad in search engines and click on it. Why you need it: The higher the percentage, the more persuasive your copy is. How to measure it: Your advertising platform will have user analytics for you. 2. Sales conversion rate What it is: The total number of sales divided by the number of interactions with a given paid ad. Why you need it: This number shows whether or not the offer promised in the ad is still relevant for the audience the ad is being shown to and if it aligns with their expectations enough to persuade them to buy. How to track it: Your advertising platform will have these statistics for you.3. Cost per acquisition What it is: The dollar amount you pay for every new customer you obtained through a paid advertisement. Why you need it: This shows exactly where your budget is going and whether or not your campaign is worth reinvesting in.How to track it: Use an analytics tool or divide the total cost of the PPC campaign by the total revenue made from it. What are the challenges of marketing KPIs? The main challenge of marketing KPIs is choosing the right ones, monitoring them effectively, and turning data into actionable insights. To choose the right marketing KPIs every time, create SMART goals then match KPIs to link your channel type (like email or social media) to your desired outcome. To monitor them effectively, make sure that all your KPIs are measurable and that there are tools in place to capture all related data. Finally, turn data into actionable insights by using a professional services management platform to create automated reports plus easy-to-read insights. What to do when KPIs aren't met Now that you have your digital marketing KPIs set, it’s important to know what happens if your KPIs are failing. If they’re not connected to strategy, overshooting (or undershooting) your goals, or are too outdated now, the best way to get back on track is to adopt a marketing project management solution like Wrike. Why Wrike can help you with digital marketing KPIs Wrike helps directors and managers use digital marketing KPIs to make informed decisions. Wrike Report automates marketing, data capture, assessment, and reporting using visual graphs so that KPIs are easier to understand. At-a-glance updates like these save time and make collaboration that much smoother. Marketing teams can also create templates for repeated campaigns or to relive the success of another client’s strategy for a new project. Use Wrike’s two-week free trial to visualize your objectives and key results (OKRs) so that your KPIs are bulletproof throughout any project.
How to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Productivity
Social media marketing can be extremely time-consuming. Monitoring mentions, responding to comments, managing your engagement on multiple profiles and doing everything possible to ensure you get the best results from social media—it all adds up to a lot of time spent using and switching between different apps. A good social media management tool can save you a lot of hours, while also improving your results. This infographic lists 5 top social media management tools on the market right now, rated by customer reviews. Infographic brought to you by Seriously Social and G2 Crowd. Credit: Ian Anderson Gray The real trick when finding social media management tools is to find the one that has the features you need, whether based on the social channels you use, or the goals you have for your social media marketing efforts. From there, it’s a case of finding the perfect plan for your dashboard that provides the features you want at no extra cost. Sometimes this can prove problematic, as many tools have hidden costs that you may not know to look for. Let’s examine how you can use social media management tools to improve your productivity. Customer Relationship Management Social media has always offered a way for businesses to have a closer relationship with their customers, but now, it’s more important than ever to not only respond as promptly as possible to any inquiries, comments and customer service issues, but also to create a more personalized experience for your followers. Social media management dashboards are now incorporating more complex CRM tools. For example, you can organize and segment your audience by tagging users. Many tools also allow you to see all of the past conversations you’ve held with a certain social media user. This way, you’re always in the loop and by showing you remember past discussions you give that personal touch that can help build stronger connections with your followers. More and more businesses and marketers nowadays are using influencer marketing to reach a bigger audience and get more traffic, engagement and make more sales, and a social media management tool can help you in those efforts. You can use it to identify any influencers that are already in your list, as well as other influencers in your niche. From there, it’s just a question of engaging as much as possible with them, in order to build mutually beneficial relationships. A social media management tool with a strong CRM function can help you not only with customer service on social media, but it can also help you develop stronger relationships and to find more potential leads. Set Up an Editorial Calendar In order to be successful on social media, you need to post updates often and at the right times. Being organized with your content can help with this in the long run, especially if you’re using an editorial calendar, which is a feature I’m seeing more and more in social media management tools. Up until recently, one of the biggest draws of social media management tools was that you could easily schedule updates for your social media accounts. Now, though, tools make it easier to schedule your content more intelligently and help you make sure you don’t miss any opportunities to raise your traffic and engagement. Evergreen content is also on the rise, with more and more marketers striving to create content that will remain relevant months and even years from now. If you have any evergreen content, make sure to add it to your editorial calendar in order to re-publish it regularly and get the most out of it. Collaborate with Your Team When you have multiple social media profiles to manage and don’t want to work 24 hours a day, the best thing to do is to get some of your team members to help. Find a tool that has team management capabilities – the more, the better. This will not only free up some of your time, you might find that some of your team members are better at social media and getting better results. Most tools will allow you to assign tasks to team members, which they can see when they open their own accounts. For instance, if you’re get a lot of mentions and comments, you could have someone from your team assigning the most important ones directly to the head marketer, while they respond to all the other mentions. Some tools also include a breakdown of analytics by team member, so you can see what each person’s response time is, what kind of engagement they’re getting, and more. How Are You Using Social Media Marketing Tools? Social media marketing has evolved a lot over the years, and marketers’ needs are changing as well. Social media management tools are evolving to meet those needs, and are becoming more than just tools for scheduling and publishing to a few social accounts. How are you using these tools to become more efficient and productive? Share your favorite tools and tricks in the comments below. Author Bio Highly regarded on the world speaker circuit, Lilach Bullock has graced both Forbes and Number 10 Downing Street with her presence! Listed in Forbes as one of the top 20 women social media power influencers, Lilach has been crowned the Social Influencer of Europe by Oracle, and is a recipient of a Global Women Champions Award for her outstanding contribution and leadership in business.
Online Marketing 101 (Infographic)
“Welcome to the team! Have you met John and Rita in SEM & SEO? You’ll be working closely with them. Oh, and make sure you connect with Nancy, she’s in charge of lead scoring and nurturing. The email and mobile marketing teams are in these rooms. How much experience do you have with marketing automation, again?” Woah. Who knew there were so many pieces to the digital marketing puzzle? If you’re new to the world of online marketing, don’t fret. We’re here to help you fit the pieces together — and figure out exactly where you fit in. Check out our new infographic cheat sheet on the basics of major online marketing approaches: Like this infographic? Embed it on your site with this code: Wrike Social Project Management Software Related Reads:6 Digital Marketing Trends to Watch in 20157 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team (FREE eBook)
What Is Multicultural Marketing and Why Is it Important?
When you promote a product to a new audience, it’s obvious that you have to take that audience’s sensibilities into account. But what does that mean when your business appeals to specific demographics, cultures, and subcultures? Cross-cultural marketing requires a thoughtful approach to the context, history, and sensibilities of any given culture or subculture. In some cases, that might mean learning new words. Or you might have to learn a different “marketing language” to resonate with your audience. To achieve true cultural diversity in marketing, you have to dig deep into the history behind a different culture, learn what makes it tick, and ultimately align your marketing materials with that new language. What is cultural marketing? Cultural marketing is any business endeavor to promote a product or service to a particular demographic. This includes overseas and international cultures but can also refer to minority cultures in your own country. To resonate with a demographic, the marketing campaign has to consider the tradition, language, religious upbringing, and history of that culture. For example, travel companies target specific cultures to resonate with why their customers travel for the holidays. It requires a global marketing perspective that embraces traditions across the world. Consider when Expedia once shared an employee roundup on their social media platforms. They asked employees how they celebrate the Lunar New Year — a bigger event in cultures with Hindu and Buddhist influences. The campaign looked at traditional Lunar New Year dishes and travel plans centered around February 1st, not the January 1st new year, as is traditional in western countries. Cultural marketing touches on two of the four Ps of marketing: promotion and place. Promotion identifies the cultural touchpoints to align your campaign to the appropriate demographics. After all, you wouldn’t advertise your Christmas trees during a Hanukkah television event. Place means finding where your target demographic spends their time, either offline or online, to prevent wasted advertising dollars. Why is culture in marketing important? Integrating cultural knowledge into your marketing efforts is key because you need to engage people in the appropriate context. Otherwise, your message may not resonate the way you hoped. Think of multicultural marketing as learning to speak a new language. But rather than conjugating verbs, you’re picking up on the social cues and habits that define different demographic influences. Anyone in international business knows that what may be acceptable in one culture turns into a faux pas in another. For example, when the Australian TV anchor Karl Stefanovic attempted a joke with the Dalai Lama (“the Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop and says, ‘make me one with everything’”), the joke didn’t translate. Said Stefanovich: “He didn’t know what pizza was.” When marketing to your native culture, it’s easy to take cultural assumptions for granted. You have the same baseline experiences, the same influences, and speak the same cultural languages. Effective multicultural marketing strategy requires humbling yourself and your team as you learn to move across boundaries. Great cross-cultural marketing examples 1. 100% Pure New Zealand To drive visits to their native country, Tourism New Zealand had to accomplish two things. First, they had to reach across cultural boundaries to show the appeal of New Zealand to an international audience. Second, they had to incorporate every local culture that helps make New Zealand unique. Their “New Zealand Welcome” campaign accomplished both with a clever fusing of the two goals. They focused their subject on something any culture will resonate with — something as simple as a sunrise. Then Tourism New Zealand invited people all across the country to submit their own sunrise greetings with the hashtag #goodmorningworldnz. The result? A video highlighting the broad spectrum of cultural diversity within New Zealand — while still emphasizing the unity and beauty of a country with universal appeal. 2. Procter and Gamble: “My Black is Beautiful” Campaign Procter and Gamble’s television campaign “The Talk” included a frank look at the history of racism in the western world. But rather than paint African-American culture with an overly simplistic brush, the commercial showed a diverse range of individuals and circumstances. It revealed a deeper understanding of the reasons behind their hashtag #TalkAboutBias. The TV spot was clearly the result of a thoughtful approach to the double standards and racial biases in our society. A lesser campaign may have shied away from the frank conversations in the ad. Procter and Gamble did not. 3. Target: “Cada Momento Vale Más” Sometimes multicultural marketing requires speaking another language — but only figuratively. Target’s Cada Momento Vale Más campaign took real demographic numbers into account, realizing there are over 40 million people in the U.S. who speak Spanish at home. When Target launched its campaign, it included both Spanish and English language ads. Target even changed the music in its campaigns depending on the demographic targets. For English-language ads, the campaign featured hits by Mary J. Blige. For Spanish-language ads, they shifted to the Brazilian artist Anitta. What are the challenges of cross-cultural marketing? Based on these successful cross-cultural marketing examples, it might seem like avoiding multicultural marketing is the only mistake a business can make. Of course you should reach out to other cultures to expand your business’s boundaries and build a more inclusive marketing plan. But doing so isn’t without its risks, particularly if you go about it in the wrong way. Even well-intentioned campaigns can have unintended consequences, including: “Lost in translation” mistakes Translating from one language to another is not a challenge. But finding an effective cultural translation is another thing entirely. For example, during Coca-Cola’s initial entries into the Chinese market, its marketers looked for Chinese characters to spell out “Coca-Cola” as accurately as possible. The problem? As written, the characters actually meant “bite the wax tadpole.” It’s not enough to perform literal translation. Your company has to understand the cultural and historical context behind every campaign. Superficial mistakes To borrow an example from another cola company, Pepsi ran into a cultural blunder with its 2017 Super Bowl ad. In the ad, the gift of a Pepsi from a prominent celebrity seemed to suggest that deep-mired cultural issues could be rooted out with a nice gesture from a reality star. The commercial featured celebrity Kendall Jenner gifting a Pepsi to a police officer supervising a protest, solving the turmoil in the background. Rather than striking the right chord, the ad came across as blind to the complex realities behind the Black Lives Matter movement, which inspired many worldwide protests that year. Ignoring cultural context To borrow another example from Procter and Gamble, the company once launched an advertisement that featured a woman taking a bath. The woman’s husband entered the bathroom and gave her a massage. The ad performed well in Europe, where cultural norms generally accepted the scene. In Japan, however, audiences were confused as to why the husband would violate the wife’s privacy in such a brazen way — the ad was seen as racy, inappropriate, and in poor taste. They’d failed to take different cultural norms into account. How to use Wrike to manage a multicultural marketing campaign The question isn’t whether you should take a thoughtful, complex approach to multicultural marketing when attempting to reach a new demographic. You already know the importance of culture in marketing. The question is how you achieve a thoughtful approach. The first step is to make the marketing campaign as simple to run as possible. For example, if you reach out to different cultural experts across the world, you’ll need a singular dashboard that keeps everyone in communication with each other. Wrike’s marketing campaign management template makes it easy for a remote worker on the other side of the planet to tag a project manager whenever there’s a potential issue with your approach. The next step is to double-check your cultural research. Use Wrike’s operations management templates and build a custom request form whenever a representative of that culture needs to add their input. You should also build a diverse team of multiple voices to ensure a balanced approach to your marketing campaigns. Add team members to each layer of your project management with a custom workflow that runs every new idea by the people who need to hear it. Finally, consider the PESTLE acronym as you move ahead with a project. This acronym is an ideal way to consider the whole context of your marketing environment. Don’t launch your new campaign until you’ve considered the following: P: Political factors E: Economic factors S: Social and demographic factors T: Technological advancement factors L: Legal and regulatory factors E: Environmental factors It’s not enough to consider just one of these factors and call it a day. Effective project management is about bringing in multiple viewpoints — from experts and team members to stakeholders — and disseminating them into cohesive strategic steps. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to multicultural marketing. It requires an adaptable, unique approach for every new project. That’s where effective collaboration comes in. Try out Wrike today and discover why so many people rely on our collaborative work platform to turn large, complex projects into actionable workflows.
10 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid At All Costs
With the business landscape forever in flux and changing at a rapid pace, it's tough being a marketer. You have to constantly learn and master new technologies, communication platforms, and audience pains all at the same time. And it's dreadfully easy to make a mistake. In the Slideshare below, we list 10 marketing mistakes that can be fatal for companies. With proper planning, careful execution, and the appropriate tools to help, you can make sure your team doesn't make these mistakes in your next marketing project! 10 Marketing Mistakes You Should Never Commit The 10 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid 01. Trying to be everything to everyone You can't solve everyone's problems. You have a target audience, an ideal customer. Segment your lists. Aim for the sweet spot. Don't try to be a Swiss army tool. 02. Trying to go it alone Activate your network, followers, influencers, or partners to grow your brand's presence. Get them involved in helping you create and promote inspiring stories, great visual content, or helpful resources. 03. Ignoring SEO If you ignore SEO, you’re chances of being found on the web diminish considerably, and your business will never gain the online credibility it needs for search engines to send you the right visitors. 04. Following each new trend Do you look into each and every new trend or strategy before making moves? That could be burning your team out and severely limiting the impact of your marketing. 05. Promoting your brand on social media all the time Nothing's more boring than the dinner guest who only talks about himself. Don't be that guy. Instead, be helpful, be genuine, share stuff which your contacts will find useful. 06. Running your campaigns with email/spreadsheets Using the wrong tools will result in lost productivity and inefficiency. The quality of your work and the swiftness of your response time will suffer. Instead, use a proper work management tool — like Wrike. 07. Working in silos Are your Lead Gen, Content, SEO, Web, and PR teams working from the same playbook? Are you aligned with the Product and Sales priorities as well? Working in silos will kill your growth potential. 08. Not measuring your efforts Always measure and adjust your plan according to the results of previous performance. Make sure your efforts are not being wasted by posting/emailing at the wrong time or to the wrong segments. 09. Forgetting your current customers Do you stress about growing awareness and bringing new prospects into your sales cycle, but forget about who's paying the bills today? Don't ignore your current customers — keep them happy, focus on repurchase and retention, and don't forget about upselling when it will benefit your current clients! 10. Forgetting "calls to action" Do readers of your blog know where to go when they're done reading? Do you give visitors to your web pages a place to click next? Do you have CTAs on key social sites and profiles? A few examples of good CTAs: — When you create an eBook landing page, clearly let your visitors know that they can download the book. — When you write blog posts, end with suggestions: "read this article next", "share your thoughts", or "give our product a try". What do you consider a deadly marketing mistake? Hit the comments and tell us what other marketing mistakes can tear a company down.