Will Your Company's Social Media Marketing Efforts Pay Off? (Infographic)
In order to be successful marketing your business in social media, you need to invest time and resources, and understand what is targeting in marketing. This decision tree helps you see if you're ready to launch a full-scale social media effort that will lead to more attention and business leads. Will your company's social media efforts pay off? See the decision tree below. Embed this infographic in your site using the code below: Wrike Project Management Software What ingredients are key to social media success? What do you think the most essential ingredient is for a social media strategy? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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5 Best Affiliate Programs for Bloggers
You've been working hard to fill your blog with unique and inspiring content, carefully choosing topics and polishing sentences. Now it's your moment of glory — and you've gotten hundreds or even thousands of comments, shares, and retweets! If you're at this point and you haven't started monetizing your blog with top affiliates programs, then it's high time to jump into the world of affiliate marketing. When launching an affiliate program on your blog, keep in mind these ground rules for success: Choose a niche, best-seller product that appeals to the majority of your readers. Ideally it should be a product you actively use, or have a good understanding of how to use. If you're not quite sure which tool to choose from a list of market competitors, check out ratings on review sites to see how real users feel about it. Check out the main affiliate conditions: besides commission rate, take a look at minimum payout, cookie length, and reporting systems for tracking your referrals. Use a combination of promotion tools: writing a detailed review from your own point of view is always the best. Combine it with social media promotion, banner placement on your blog, or featuring it in your newsletters for better results. Don't hesitate to contact vendors you're going to promote for more details about the product, best practices, product screenshots, or any other promotional materials. To help you get started monetizing your blog, we've prepared a short list of best affiliate programs in various niches: Business: Wrike Wrike is a leading work management and collaboration tool that helps teams all over the world complete projects on time and on budget. You'll get $100 per paid Professional subscription and $200 per paid Enterprise subscription. Travel: TravelPayouts TravelPayouts.com is actually a mini-network of three travel engines that scan through popular sites to help users find cheap, easy travel and accommodations. As an affiliate, you will receive up to 70% of the income on each sale, for an average of $9 USD on airline tickets and $30 USD on hotel bookings. Books: Amazon This niche has one obvious, trusted choice! If you want an established affiliate program to support your book reviews, check out Amazon Associates. You'll get up to 10% in advertising fees. Health: HealthyWage Earn money by helping others win big, lose weight, and get healthy! HealthyWage is a friendly weight loss challenge site. Earn $60 for each HealthyWager sign-up you generate, or $40 for each Team Challenge participant sign-up you generate. Education: Udemy Udemy is one of the largest marketplaces for online education courses. You'll get 50% commission for any course you sell both to new and returning customers. What other top affiliate programs do you recommend? Have you tried monetizing your blog? Which tools can you recommend with high-paying affiliate programs to help writers earn and provide value for their readers? Help everyone out in the comments below!
Are You a Purple Cow? Find Out Why it Matters (Book Review)
This is the secret to successful marketing strategies, according to best-selling author Seth Godin. Marketing works to generate interest and be remembered. Run-of-the-mill tactics simply won't cut it in this endeavor. Companies must be a purple cow, able to make folks do a double take and rise ahead of competitors.
Quiz: What's Your Team's Agile Marketing Score?
Improved quality of work, faster time to release, better team morale and alignment — truly Agile marketing teams are at a distinct competitive advantage. But getting your co-workers up to speed with Agile team roles so you actually reap these benefits is tricky, and it can be difficult to know whether you’re on the right track. That’s why we created an interactive self-assessment that will help you evaluate your team’s agility and get some simple, practical tips for improvement. Will your marketing team make the grade? Click here to take our short self-assessment and find out! Brilliant Agile Marketing Teams Run on Wrike Wrike's new solution tailored for marketing teams includes Custom Request forms, proofing & approval, visual dashboards and real-time reports to help marketing teams exceed customer expectations and launch successful campaigns. Learn more about Wrike for Marketers, or try it free for 2 weeks.
10 Free Online Training Resources for Adobe Creative Cloud
Whether you’re a novice designer or have years of experience under your belt, there’s always new shortcuts, features, and techniques to learn — especially when it comes to complex software like Adobe Creative Cloud. Sharpen your existing skills or learn the ins and outs of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, and the rest of Adobe’s suite of creative tools with these free online tutorials and training resources. 1. Adobe Learn Adobe Learn is an official collection of manuals, tutorials, and FAQs straight from Adobe. Learn the essentials of each application, brush up on new features and techniques, and connect with other Creative Cloud users to discuss new tricks and best practices. 2. Adobe CC on YouTube Keep up with the latest feature releases and industry news with the Adobe CC YouTube channel. Watch interviews with leading creative professionals, hear their favorite tips and tricks, and watch workshops and master classes on demand. 3. CC TV with Terry White Blogger Terry White shares nearly 500 videos, including tutorials covering the breadth of Adobe CC, broken down in to helpful playlists covering each application. White also shares his reviews of the latest technology and creative tools. 4. Cineversity Cineversity offers hundreds of tutorials on 3D graphics and visual effects, along with community forums, a knowledge base, and other creative resources. Check out their offerings on After Effects, Illustrator, and Photoshop. 5. Computer Arts — Creative Bloq Award-winning design magazine Computer Arts features articles with roundups of top tutorials for all types of creative software, including Adobe CC. Check out their favorite demonstrations and trainings for Illustrator and Photoshop. 6. Creative COW Access dozens of tutorials on After Effects, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, and more Adobe CC apps. You can connect with other creative professionals in Creative COW's discussion forums. 7. Julieanne Kost Kost shares dozens of video tutorials and techniques for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom on her YouTube channel, suitable for both beginners and advanced users. She also blogs for Adobe and has written several books on Photoshop and Lightroom. 8. KelbyOne's CC Resource Center In addition to basic how-tos and feature walk-throughs, KelbyOne offers videos with advice on improving your creative workflow, how to get the most out of Adobe Creative Cloud, and quick crash course tutorials on the different applications. 9. Larry Jordan Find hundreds of expert training videos on Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop from editor Larry Jordan, along with high-level lessons on the craft of film editing. From practical how-tos like creating masks for chroma-keys or creating green-screen effects in Premiere, to high-level analysis on shot order and casting techniques, Jordan's goal is to help viewers "edit smarter." 10. Layers Magazine Layers Magazine covers the latest tools and techniques used in the creative industry, and they offer hundreds of how-to articles on Adobe’s Creative Suite. If you’re looking for specific instructions on how to stitch images together into a panorama in Lightroom, or how to change a model’s shade of lipstick in Photoshop, start here. More Tools and Resources for Creative Professionals If you live in Adobe Creative Cloud, you know how useful plugins and extensions can be when it comes to making design work easier and more efficient. Check out our list of the top 10 free and paid add-ons for Adobe Photoshop and grab some must-have new tools. Then learn how Wrike's solution for marketing and creative teams can streamline administrative tasks and free your time to focus on creative work.
Stressed Out Creative Teams Can Find Help from Automation
In order to remain competitive, creatives must either create more or more effective content. We surveyed more than 1,500 creative managers and individual contributors, both agency and in-house, to better understand the current state of creative teams and investigate their key challenges.
The Definitive Guide to Multi-Channel Marketing
Multi-channel marketing is a complex yet powerful strategy that marketers use to reach more leads using various platforms. By implementing multi-channel marketing, you can reach out to your customers at every stage of their journey. It also allows marketers to study behavioral patterns, making sending targeted messages relevant to their interests easier. Keep reading to discover what multi-channel marketing is and how to make the most of it with the right tools. What is multi-channel marketing? Multi-channel marketing is often defined as the strategy of communicating with prospects and customers across various channels. Instead of running a single campaign or tactic, marketers are now mirroring how consumers operate in various places all at once. It enables leads to take action in response to your offer or service without requiring them to purchase it using one particular channel. There are many types of channels that a business can use to reach potential customers. The most popular ones are: Social media Digital marketplaces Paid and native advertising Content creation Podcasting Blogging Direct mail marketing Mobile marketing Voice assisted search However, not all channels are created equal. The platforms you start with will largely depend on your industry, your audience, and your team’s workload capacity. For example, a B2B software startup may need to focus on building an engaged audience on LinkedIn before expanding to additional channels to build long-term success. With so many marketing channels to choose from, it's no wonder that many companies still struggle to create multi-channel campaigns that can stand out from the crowd. Yet, as the number of marketing channels continues to expand, it becomes more important to develop multi-channel marketing campaigns that can reach all of your potential customers. With multiple channels in play, it's also important to measure the effectiveness of each one. Through closed-loop analytics, marketers will be able to identify which channels were most effective and which ones were not. Why is it important to your business? Multi-channel marketing is important for the simple reason that customers are everywhere. Today's world is full of more channels than ever before, and the need to embrace multi-channel marketing is becoming a critical one. With the rise of digital marketing, customers have more control over their buying decisions. And for many, they’d prefer to consult multiple channels before coming to a conclusion. So it’s easy to see why having the ability to customize how people interact with your business is very helpful for increasing conversions. Another reason why it’s so important to participate in multi-channel marketing is that many consumers expect it these days. Think of it as an opportunity for your brand to stay consistent across various mediums, which helps keep it fresh and relevant. What are the benefits of multi-channel marketing? 1. Access valuable data By implementing multi-channel marketing, you'll be able to reach out to your customers at every stage of their journey. And by analyzing their behavioral patterns, you can send targeted messages that are relevant to their interests. 2. Improve campaign effectiveness Through multi-channel marketing, companies can create an integrated approach that combines various communication channels to reach their customers. This strategy allows them to measure and respond to each other in real-time. Plus, by creating a multi-channel marketing platform that enables marketers to connect and execute cross-channel campaigns, you can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing efforts while also reducing costs. For example, having more touchpoints in your funnel helps you collect more data. After all, knowing your audience can help determine the best way to reach them. 3. Develop strong ecosystems A good multi-channel marketing ecosystem ties all of your customer touchpoints into one overall experience. You're able to measure and react to each customer's behavior across all of your marketing channels so that your messages are always aligned with theirs. 4. Track wins accurately It can also help you measure your success and identify areas where your promotions are performing well. With that information, you’ll be able to perform A/B testing with the same message on a variety of channels. Or send different messages per platform once you drill down on who uses which channel for what. 5. Engage audiences more A multi-channel marketing campaign can help drive engagement and enhance a customer's experience at all touchpoints. For example, if a customer visits a shoe store, she might receive a discount code after choosing to receive a personalized message from the store. After choosing to receive a welcome email, she'll also be prompted to download the brand app. 6. Understand customers better A successful multi-channel marketing campaign is one that will help you understand your customer's communication and brand preferences so that you can constantly deliver relevant offers across all of them. After they've completed the onboarding process, you'll start providing targeted promotions based on their interests. For instance, if a user has saved their interests for future purchases, you can offer them limited-time discounts or promote products that match their saved interests. When your customers engage with your brand through various methods, you can use their behavioral insights to deliver highly personalized marketing messages. These insights can be used to inform content that's relevant to their interests. Multi-channel marketing examples Not sure where to begin? The simplest approach that many successful companies take is to add a complementary channel to an already established campaign. Here are some multi-channel marketing examples that illustrate this idea: Google Ads are used to promote various products and services. These extensions allow advertisers to easily integrate mobile and web activity into their ad campaigns. Some mail-order catalogs feature URLs or QR codes that direct viewers to a website. This feature is popular because it lets users order online without manually navigating to the online portion of the brand. Many television shows take advantage of the second screen effect by featuring a Twitter hashtag overlay during their shows. Some also verbally encourage their audience to participate on Twitter by following, retweeting, and using the hashtag while watching. Ways to improve your multi-channel communications Despite the advantages of multi-channel marketing, this approach does come with its own unique challenges. First, multi-channel marketing can be very costly. Second, it can take a while to develop a strategy and implement it. Third, it can also be difficult to measure the success of a campaign. With these common issues in mind, here are some simple yet effective ways to improve your existing campaigns: Be consistent. One of the most powerful factors that drive a successful customer experience is consistency. If your customers have varying experiences across all channels, then you run the risk of alienating them. Stay focused. Creating highly choreographed campaigns that are designed to influence multiple channels and devices is not realistic. Instead, marketers should constantly develop and coordinate campaigns that are designed to deliver consistent experiences across all platforms. Simplify everything. Creating targeted messaging that is both accurate and memorable is key to keeping your customers engaged. If you don’t already have one clear idea in all of your content, it’s time to reorganize your calendar. Research more. A clearly defined buyer persona helps marketers identify their ideal buyer and formulate their marketing efforts. Having a clear view of the customer is also critical to understand their behavior. It can help you identify areas where you can improve and develop new strategies to engage more effectively with them. Grow together. Your customer view must evolve along with their experiences. Doing so means constantly updating and revamping your data models and systems. Also, stay on top of marketing trends for each channel. Recognize your limits. Success doesn't come by being present on all of these channels. It comes by addressing the various areas of multi-channel marketing that are necessary to be successful. Use retargeting. Retargeting is a form of advertising that shows targeted ads to people who have bounced from your website while on other platforms. By understanding how many times website users have visited your pages and clicked on your ad, you can then customize your messages and offer them more relevant offers. Include activities. An activation sequence is initiated when a customer makes a purchase or opts in to a marketing offer across various platforms. This step typically begins by sending an email to confirm their account information. How does multi-channel marketing compare with omnichannel? Omnichannel and multi-channel marketing have one big thing in common. They both require you to know which of your channels are most likely to work for your buyer persona and your goals. Other than that, they are quite different. Unlike with omnichannel marketing, cross-channel marketing is the key to successful multi-channel marketing. It involves creating a strategy that works seamlessly across various channels and platforms. Cross-channel communications are also a great way to promote loyalty programs. You can reach out to your users through email and SMS and then provide them with in-app and web push notifications. A unique multi-channel marketing strategy helps you get a clear view of the buying cycle and identify opportunities to improve it. It also allows you to customize messaging and communications to reach each individual customer. For example, SMS marketing and push notifications have become popular channels for personalized engagement. This also means that channel combinations are as important as individual channel strategies since some channels work better with each other than others. For example, TikTok videos are easy to share on Instagram and vice versa. Multi-channel marketing is also reliant on your team’s bandwidth and skillsets. You probably have team members who are experts in different channels. It's possible to end up with a disjointed approach where each team member has their own channel expertise. That’s where a well-rounded marketing team with niche experts for every channel comes in. Omnichannel marketing’s biggest limitation is reach. There are different demographics of people who interact with each channel type. This means that a singular channel approach may not lead you to the right leads in the right way. Additionally, even if the channel is something everyone is familiar with, such as email, there will be differences in the ways each demographic uses the platform. And although messaging should be consistent across all channels, you'll also have to be strategic about what works on each platform. How can I improve my multi-channel engagement? If you want to improve your multi-channel engagement, you have to master the art of the follow-up. Whether it’s ad retargeting, email, or another channel, your channels should all work together to achieve seven or more touchpoints with each lead. Make sure to always offer value when you communicate with a warm lead. That value could be a free trial, helpful content, or anything else that will support your target audience. Also, track the data from your follow-ups the same way you track your initial interactions. Learn from and tweak your strategy over time to find the right combinations of messages and channels that will create a magnetic buyer's journey. What are the challenges of multi-channel campaigns? Content creation for one channel is hard enough. But creating content for multiple channels in a way that ensures they’re all working together cohesively? Even tougher. Still, having a clear goal and roadmap for how you’ll use each channel will make decision-making that much faster. Also, never be afraid to recycle content across platforms. Sometimes people need a few different mediums to learn something new. What are the different types of marketing mediums? Marketing mediums include online and offline channels. Popular online channels include social media, email, paid advertising, SEO, and mobile marketing. Offline channels typically use the mediums of print, television, mail, and radio. How to plan your multi-channel marketing strategy with Wrike A good multi-channel marketing automation system is essential to track all of your leads' interactions and engagement. It can also help you make better decisions and take action on your leads' unique paths. That’s where Wrike comes in. Wrike is a marketing project management software that allows marketers to plan, execute, and analyze multi-channel marketing campaigns. Simply create a new project for your strategy plus additional projects for each deliverable so that every deliverable has a beginning and end that are easy to track. To create unique structures for your many channels and subprojects, add tasks for each step in the process. For example, you can designate content drafting, design elements, and publication as separate tasks by channel. Each task can include approvals from other team members and automatically notify whoever is responsible for the next task once this step is complete. After that, add milestones for the deliverable share or publication date. This will create a deliverable calendar you can share with stakeholders to summarize all current and future initiatives. You can also use Wrike as a centralized marketing data hub with supplementary document and asset storage. Not only does creating a centralized marketing data hub get that single customer view, but it also consolidates all the customer data in one place. You can also use Wrike to create an integration strategy. An integration strategy involves seamlessly weaving various platforms and methods to enable organizations to manage all of their customer communication activities across various channels. This strategy could: include a unified inbox to track all of your customer communication a marketing operations platform that helps you manage all of your publishing and analytics activities a CRM that tracks interactions and engagement Choosing the right multi-channel marketing tool is challenging when you need to manage more than one platform at a time. Wrike helps marketers create fluid and foolproof roadmaps with the help of advanced features perfectly suited for simplifying even the most complex projects. Start your free trial today.
How Aerotek’s Marketing Team Accelerates Planning Cycles by 1.5 Weeks
We recently caught up with Matt Andrews from Aerotek, a leading recruiting and staffing firm, to learn how his team has streamlined marketing requests, shortened planning cycles, cut email by 90%, and much more.
Elements of a Standout Social Media Template
You can find no shortage of social media templates online, but very few offer the flexibility and ease of use needed to keep pace with an evolving social strategy. We’ve isolated the crucial elements of a standout social media plan template to help you build a lasting presence across multiple channels.
Join the Agile Marketing Revolution! (Infographic)
Is your team a lean, mean, Agile marketing machine? In today’s digital age, responsiveness and adaptability are essential for creative teams. Join your marketing comrades and take up the Agile cause! Revolutionize the way you build campaigns, capitalize on the latest trends, and capture your audience’s attention by following this Agile Marketing Manifesto. Check out the infographic below for Agile axioms that will help you adjust to change, attract stronger leads, and work as a dynamic team. Source: Space Chimp Media Is your marketing team ready for the advantages of Agile? Or are you already a standard-bearer for the movement? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
