Brief overview of the GDPR and its impact on email marketing

The requirement for explicit opt-in for email newsletters is a significant change introduced by the GDPR. Prior to the implementation of these regulations, companies were able to add individuals to their email lists without their explicit consent, as long as they provided an opt-out option. However, under the GDPR, companies must now obtain explicit consent before adding individuals to their email lists.

Obtaining explicit consent is a two-step process. First, companies must provide clear and concise information about how the email list will be used and what types of communications subscribers can expect to receive. This information must be provided in a clear and easily accessible manner, such as through a sign-up form or a privacy policy.

After providing this information, companies must then obtain explicit consent from individuals before adding them to the email list. This can be done through a variety of methods, such as a checkbox on a sign-up form or a confirmatory email.

The GDPR also requires the use of double opt-in processes, in which individuals must confirm their consent to receive emails before being added to the list. This means that after initially providing their consent, individuals must take an additional step to confirm that they wish to receive emails from the company. This can be done through the use of a confirmatory email or by clicking a link in a confirmation message.

Overall, the requirement for explicit opt-in and the use of double opt-in processes under the GDPR are designed to ensure that individuals are fully informed about how their data will be used and that they have actively consented to receive emails from a company. This helps to protect the privacy and security of individuals’ personal data and ensures that companies are only sending emails to those who have explicitly requested to receive them.

Obtaining explicit consent for email marketing

In addition to obtaining consent, email marketers must also be mindful of data privacy and security. This includes implementing privacy by design principles, which means designing systems and processes with data protection in mind from the outset. Companies must also review and update their email marketing policies and practices to ensure compliance with the GDPR.

Personalizing and segmenting email campaigns

While the GDPR has introduced new challenges for email marketers, it has also created opportunities to improve the quality and effectiveness of email campaigns. One of the key ways to do this is through personalization and segmentation.

Personalization involves customizing email content and subject lines to individual subscribers, based on their interests, preferences, and behavior. By using personalization techniques such as dynamic content, companies can tailor their emails to the specific needs and interests of their subscribers, making them more relevant and engaging.

Segmentation involves dividing email lists into smaller groups based on shared characteristics, such as location, age, or purchasing history. By segmenting email lists, companies can create targeted campaigns that are more relevant and personalized to each group, resulting in higher open and click-through rates.

In addition to personalization and segmentation, it’s also important for companies to be transparent about their data collection and usage practices. This includes clearly communicating how data is being collected and used, as well as providing an easy way for subscribers to opt-out or unsubscribe if they no longer wish to receive emails. By being transparent and providing options for subscribers to control their data and communication preferences, companies can build trust and strengthen their relationships with their audience.

Conclusion 

In conclusion, the GDPR has brought about significant changes to the email marketing landscape. While it may have added some challenges, it has also created an opportunity for companies to improve the quality and effectiveness of their email campaigns. By adapting and evolving their strategies to meet the new requirements and expectations of consumers, companies can continue to use email marketing as an effective tool for reaching and engaging their target audience.

The post The Future of Email Marketing in a Post-GDPR World appeared first on Right Marketing Insider.

Learning marketing in high school can create great marketers in the future. This is especially true for students participating in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Internal Assessment, a project-based assessment that requires students to develop a marketing plan for a real or simulated business. Through this process, students have the opportunity to apply marketing concepts and techniques in a real-world context, preparing them for future careers in marketing and other business fields.

The IB Internal Assessment requires students to research the target market, identify key marketing objectives, and develop a comprehensive marketing strategy to achieve these objectives. This process can be challenging and time-consuming, especially for students who are struggling to complete their assessments. In these cases, it may be helpful to consider ordering the Internal Assessment from professional IB writers like IB Student Help.

Professional IB writers are experienced in creating high-quality Internal Assessments that meet the requirements and expectations of the IB. By ordering the Internal Assessment from a professional writer, students can save time and ensure that they are submitting a high-quality assessment that meets the standards of the IB. This can be especially useful for students who are struggling to complete their assessments or who are looking for additional support and guidance.

The IB Internal Assessment requires students to develop a marketing plan for a real or simulated business. This process involves several key elements, including researching the target market, identifying key marketing objectives, and developing a comprehensive marketing strategy to achieve these objectives.

Researching the target market is an essential part of any marketing strategy. This involves gathering data about the characteristics, needs, and preferences of the target audience. 

This data can be collected through a variety of methods, including market research surveys, focus groups, and online analytics. By understanding the target market, companies can tailor their marketing efforts to better meet the needs and interests of their customers.

Elements of a marketing strategy

Identifying key marketing objectives is another important aspect of marketing strategy. These objectives should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Some common marketing objectives include increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, and increasing sales. By setting clear marketing objectives, companies can better focus their efforts and measure the success of their marketing campaigns.

Once the target market and marketing objectives have been identified, the next step is to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy to achieve these objectives. This may include a range of tactics, such as advertising, social media marketing, content marketing, public relations, and email marketing. It’s important toto consider the resources and budget available, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the company and its competitors.

The IB Internal Assessment provides students with the opportunity to apply marketing concepts and techniques in the context of a real or simulated business. Through this process, students can develop a comprehensive understanding of the various elements of a marketing strategy and how they can be applied to achieve business objectives.

How marketing strategy can be applied in the IB Internal Assessment

One example of a marketing strategy developed as part of the IB Internal Assessment is a plan for a new mobile app. The student might begin by researching the target market for the app, which could include young professionals looking for a convenient and efficient way to manage their schedules. The student might then identify key marketing objectives, such as increasing brand awareness and driving downloads of the app. To achieve these objectives, the student might develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that includes advertising the app through social media and app stores, as well as creating engaging content to showcase the app’s features and benefits.

Another example of a marketing strategy developed as part of the IB Internal Assessment is a plan for a small restaurant. The student might begin by researching the target market for the restaurant, which could include local residents and tourists looking for high-quality dining experiences. The student might then identify key marketing objectives, such as increasing brand awareness and driving foot traffic to the restaurant. To achieve these objectives, the student might develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that includes advertising the restaurant through social media and local advertising channels, as well as developing promotional offers and events to attract customers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the IB Internal Assessment provides students with the opportunity to develop and apply marketing skills in a real or simulated business context. Through this process, students can gain a comprehensive understanding of the various elements of a marketing strategy and how they can be used to achieve business objectives. By learning marketing in high school, students can set themselves up for success in future careers in marketing and other business fields.

The post Exploring the role of marketing strategy in the IB Internal Assessment appeared first on Right Marketing Insider.

But it can be quite costly, especially if your team fails to continuously invest time into fine-tuning your strategy.

Social media strategy needs constant tweaking, analyzing and learning from your or your competitors’ success and failures.

Apart from the obvious tools (like Facebook and Twitter Analytics), here are five tools to help you come with new social media advertising tactics:

1. Awario: Position your brand better

What engages your social media best? What types of special offers and product features are being discussed on social media? What annoys your customers most, urging them to voice their complaints on social media?

A well set-up social listening strategy will answer all of these questions and more. Apart from using social media listening as part of your customer support and relationship management strategy, make sure to set up a few more alerts to keep an eye on:

• Your competitors’ unhappy customers: Are they complaining on missing or limited features? Can you create a product positioning strategy to cover that gap and reflect that positioning strategy in your social media ads?
• Existing product names: What are well known product names in your niche? You can learn a lot about how your target customers are using competing products by monitoring their names.
• Your core keywords: Keep an eye on general niche discussions to better understand what your target customers are discussing online and peaks their interests.

Social media listening strategy provides a goldmine of data for you to create a better informed advertising strategy.

Awario is an advanced social media listening platform that has a powerful market research component allowing you to better understand your niche. Use Awario boolean search feature to create advanced alerts that include several of your competitors’ names within one dashboard or let you monitor all of your target keywords.

Awario uses smart algorithms to prioritize those mentions and generate handy email digest for you to save time going through daily alerts.

Apart from using social listening for market research, there’s another powerful tactic few brands are utilizing: Curate your brand’s social proof and use it as an ad copy. Create a separate alert to get notified of your brand’s mentions with positive sentiment and collect those updates for future reference when you are fine-tuning your ad copy or looking for new ideas to position your brand when advertising on social media.

Finally, Awario allows you to evaluate your new advertising strategy by giving you access to your brand’s growth stats and allowing you to see how the sentiment has been changing:

In fact, when creating a social media ad, try using all kinds of marketing experiments. For example, look at your most effective email blasts and try re-using those subject lines. Or look at your most successful headlines or CTAs and find a way to follow the same style in your advertising copy.

2. Buzzsumo: Spy on your competitors

While you may already be aware of Facebook ads library allowing you to see which advertising strategies your competitors were using, Buzzsumo’s Facebook tools may be new to you.

Buzzsumo allows you to compare two or more Facebook pages and their content performance, side by side.

You can filter updates by post type to evaluate your competitors’ more creative tactics, like engaging questions they ask their audience or videos they invest into promoting.

3. Text Optimizer: Create a better copy

Finding the right words for an engaging ad copy is art.

It’s also a process that never ends. You need to constantly come up with new ways to craft a message so that it could engage new customers.

Text Optimizer is my source of never-ending inspiration. Just type your core keyword and it will come with a huge list of related concepts your customers are also interested about. It will also allow you to analyze popular niche questions and suggest the most relevant and engaging context.

Use the tool whenever you feel stuck and need some inspiration, like new angles and copy ideas.

SE Ranking keyword research is another ideation tool I often use for any type of content marketing, including social media copy. It shows popular ads for any keywords allowing me to see which wording competitors are using for their PPC ads:

4. SparkToro: Research your audience

Who are those people behind your target social media accounts? Which hashtags are they using? Who are they listening to?

Answering all of those questions can help you on many levels, from creating a buyer’s personas to target your ads better to finding more ways to create your targeting strategy, like hashtag- or influencer-driven targeting.

SparkToro is an audience research tool that allows you to access lots of well-organized data on how your customers are discussing your primary topic, who they engage with on social media, which Youtube channels they are subscribed to and which blogs or magazines they read.

All in all, the platform is everything you need to create a smarter targeting strategy.

When it comes to marketing research, surveying your current customers is also always a great idea. This is the fundamental customer-centric content tactic that will breathe new life in any marketing strategy.

5. Heatmaps: Understand your visitors

Don’t you want to know how your social media users engage with your landing page?

Surely, your response would be “yes”, because you spend money on attracting that click. Obviously, you want to make sure that visitor will engage with the page and become your customer.

While you are already using Google Analytics, it is not always easy to visualize what really attracts your site visitors’ attention and what attracts them.

Any time you are launching a new advertising campaign, set up a new tracking campaign using heatmaps. Heatmaps visualize clicks and mouse movements on your page allowing you to see which page elements should be rearranged to make the page easier to navigate.

Unlike Google Analytics that is continuously running on your pages, heat-mapping tools rely on a sample of data. Create new tracking, every time you have a new ad. This way you will be able to go back and compare your past heatmaps and identify what worked and what may have made things worse. Using A/B testing to pick a better performing landing page is also a very good idea.

Conclusion

As they say, when starting a social media campaign, it’s more about collecting the data than sales. Focus on learning from your successes and failures and make sure to use Facebook remarketing pixel to be able to reach out to those visitors again with better targeted ads.

There are lots of businesses who readily invest into social media ads because they seem to be more affordable than Google ads and require less set-up time. Yet, few of those advertising are doing their best to boost their strategy performance. Hopefully the above tools will give you ideas on how to innovate and improve your social media strategy. Good luck!

The post 5 Tools to Fine-Tune Your Social Media Advertising Strategy appeared first on Right Marketing Insider.

That sounds nice and all but here’s the truth: What many marketers are calling a “content marketing strategy” is merely a collection of topics and a list of random acts of content stored on a page. That is not a content marketing strategy!

If 77% have a strategy, most of them aren’t very good and today I’m going to tell you exactly why. Most content marketing strategies aren’t up to snuff, but yours doesn’t have to be one of them.

The overwhelming majority of content is so poorly constructed that it’s simply bad and therefore accomplishes nothing—for you or your audience.

Not All Content Marketing Strategies Are Created Equal

Marcus Sheridan has long discussed his They Ask, You Answer philosophy to Marketing. 

The premise is beyond simple, as it’s spelled out right there in the title of his book. Inside its pages, you come to realize that, ultimately, what buyers want is information on seven types of questions:

Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, and How Much?

These seven questions are the things your content needs to be addressing at each and every turn. The brands doing it most successfully are not only dominating search rankings but likely experiencing the fruits of their labor. 

Discovering What Makes Your Audience Tick

Productive content strategies are data-driven strategies. But simply relying on our own historical data sets us up to fail in the future. What was true yesterday may be true tomorrow, but for how long?

To truly find what your audience and prospects need, you need to combine your own data (ICP, CRM, and other audience data) with valid, third-party sources that leverage first-party buyer behaviors. Doing so allows you to compare and contrast how your audience differs from larger pockets of users. 

Here are a few ways you can use buyer-level insights and your own audience data to build a dynamite content strategy.

How Real-Time Consumption Insights Reveal Actionable Behaviors 

Accomplishing all of this requires quite a bit of information, both from a historical and an active perspective. Ideally, you’d be able to leverage your own customer and legacy data to find many of these answers to help set the table but you won’t be able to find everything.

Since Amazon doesn’t sell a Marketing Crystal Ball, we have to be strategic in how we go about filling in the gaps…however, there is a tool called Audience Explorer.

NetLine’s Audience Explorer tool is powered by millions of first-party registrations from across the web. The site shows what users are and have requested in real-time over a rolling 180-day average. Essentially, if a B2B audience exists on the web, Audience Explorer will have information on what a given group is searching for. 

For our purposes, we’re going to focus on B2B professionals working in a Marketing job area—specifically content marketers across a wide swath of industries.

Setting the Table

Audience Explorer allows you to filter consumption with five sub-categories. For the Marketing Job Area consumptions, here’s how we’ve filtered to best reflect the Convince & Convert audience:

• Job Function: Content Marketing
• Job Level: C-Level, Managers, Sr. Managers, Directors, Sr. Directors, Owners
• Region: United States
• Employee Size: N/A
• Industry: N/A

I chose to leave the Employee Size and Industry filters untouched considering the myriad of folks who use Convince and Convert.

What you’ll see now is a Total Buyer Content Recommendations count of 49,244 – meaning that in the last six months, NetLine has suggested nearly 50,000 assets to B2B users. While this is a good number to understand, it’s not the juicy bit marketers can sink their teeth into.

Who’s Most Active

The first thing that should pop out to you is just how active Content Managers, Directors, and Senior Managers are when it comes to content consumption. In this grouping, they account for 93.3% of all requests (Directors and Managers represent 81.6%), with C-Level professionals making up less than 1% of registrations. 

Takeaway: No matter which industry you reside in, mid-level employees are the best group to target with your content. Yes, you need to make sure you have something for each Job Level, but these professionals are the bell cow in every business you’re trying to gain influence in.

Topic Level Interests

The next slice of information worth noting is the Top 10 Trending Topics; an aggregate accumulation of the most popular topics from the past 180 days. The first two are Marketing and Marketing Strategy; a pretty predictable outcome given this Job Area. Healthcare Services in third also aligns given the nearly 12% audience share from professionals in the healthcare space (6% – Biotech and Pharmaceuticals, 5.7% – Healthcare/Medical). The one I’ll focus on, however, is B2B Marketing in the fourth spot.

Since the start of the pandemic, interest in B2B Marketing has grown steadily; Google Trends confirms this, as well, with search volume peaking twice in the past year. While conferences and in-person events have returned, B2B Marketers have realized they can get a sizable ROI for their hybrid or strictly digital efforts. 

Takeaway: B2B Marketers are constantly looking to educate themselves, especially on the basics. Six of the top seven trending topics are related to foundational pieces of building a strategy—a sign that everyone simply wants to better themselves and/or their employer.

Most Consumed Content Formats

In NetLine’s annual Content Consumption Report, we shared that eBooks were the dominant content format, accounting for 43.3% of all registrations. Here, we see a similar outcome, albeit not as drastic. eBooks represented 31.6% of consumption with Guides trailing at 23.06%. What we also shared in our annual report was that eBooks were uber popular, Report, White Paper, and Webinar registrations all indicated greater purchase intent. 

Takeaway: While the majority of this group of B2B Marketers are browsing at the top of the funnel, nearly half of them (45.3%) are beginning to invest significant time in formats that would signal their intent to make a purchase decision. Considering that NetLine expects roughly 31% of B2B buyers to be in market over the next 12 months, the behavior of these B2B Marketers could mean investment is coming.

Getting More Granular

Understanding what’s happening at a macro level can be quite helpful when shaping the direction of your content calendar. But of course, you’re going to eventually need to come back to the audience that butter’s your bread. 

To highlight just how specific and relevant Audience Explorer can be when it comes to informing your content marketing strategy, let’s switch and focus on the Advertising/Marketing industry rather than the Marketing job area. Again, we’ve filtered to best reflect a segment of the Convince & Convert audience:

• Sub-Industry: Advertising Agencies, Advertising/Marketing (General), Marketing Services
• Job Area: Marketing
• Job Level: Managers, Directors
• Region: United States
• Employee Size: 5,000 – 9,999; 10,000 – 19,999; 20,000 – 49,999; 50,000+

There’s a greater number of filters in play here, which will naturally shrink the size of the audience analyzed. The big benefit here, however, is how much more accurate and impactful these findings will likely be.

Our learnings from the Job Area analysis showed us that Directors and Managers were the pros most likely to seek out content. In this cohort, Directors (84.2%) requested far more content than their Managerial peers (15.8%). Because their interest was so much greater, we’ll lean further into their consumption habits and remove Managers from the Job Level filters. The Buyer Research Stream also tells a similar story, with five of the eight examples focusing on some variant of Marketing Strategy with each user being a Marketing Director.

Takeaway: Marketing Directors are often responsible for setting, executing, and overseeing content strategies. If your solution is helpful in assisting content marketers achieving their goals, be sure to start by addressing the needs of the Marketing Director first; content for other Job Areas, Levels, and Functions can follow.

In looking at the Sub-Industries, nearly 66% of consumption came via professionals working in Advertising/Marketing (General). Since this is such a generalized group, let’s get more niche and dive into the habits of professionals working inside Advertising Agencies and Marketing Services. 

Just as we saw with the Marketing Job Area, Marketing Strategy and Marketing are the top two topics, only they’ve swapped places. Healthcare Services also remains in the three-hole with Pharmaceuticals in 4th and Biotech in 10th. Given that Ashfield Health was the most active in-market company in this cohort (and by a wide margin), there’s a sizable influence from the healthcare field here. 

Hiring Strategies and Performance Management are also quite popular in this audience. It’s long been established that vendors are held to lofty standards by their clients, especially at the start of a relationship. Therefore, it’s natural for agencies and service providers to hone in on finding and getting the most out of their talent. 

Takeaway: The best insights are always the ones that exist below the surface. Sure, it might be easier to find the patterns at the top, but the ones that are “buried”? Those are the money beets.

The Most Consumed Content Formats pie chart also tells an interesting story. 63.6% of all registrations came from White Papers, Webinars, and Reports—formats that signal impending purchase decisions. It would be fascinating to see the break out between the types of content being consumed in each format but alas, Audience Explorer doesn’t provide this.

Takeaway: Professionals working for agencies and service-oriented businesses are constantly on the hunt for the next big solution. While buyer-level intent data might suggest these registrations should send up the Batsignal of impending purchase decisions, take a moment to pause and remember that these pros must keep tabs on everything occurring in the market. Best to keep context in all situations as the data can’t know everything.

Honestly, there’s enough here to keep going, but let’s frame these findings into how they can best inform your content marketing strategy and propel it forward.

Using Buyer-Level Insights to Your Advantage

Combining first-party behavioral data with your own audience and client data is a recipe for success. By simply mixing these two elements together, here’s what you can begin to piece together.

Addressing the 7 Key Questions

Starting with Google Analytics (or whatever site traffic tool you’re using), you can begin to see what your audience has been glombing onto in recent days, weeks, and months. To make sure you’re not missing anything. Leveraging resources like the Top 10 Trending Topics and Buyer Research Streams are excellent ways to see what the larger market or, better yet, your own niche, is investigating.

Once you know the kinds of information your audiences are seeking inside and outside your world, the easier it will be to answer who is asking questions, what they need to know, how they trying to get it, and when they might be looking to buy.

A Different Kind of Content Gap Analysis

Traditionally, a content gap analysis surveys where you’re missing out on key search keywords, phrases, and topics. In using tools like Audience Explorer and Google Trends in tandem, you can see the kind of macro- and micro-trends occurring within your spheres of relevance.

Anything on strategy will likely be an evergreen topic. But information about performance management in the healthcare field specific to Marketing Directors working inside of companies employing less than 10,000? That’s something SEO tools will never surface.

Uncovering Potential Purchase Intent

eBooks, Guides, and Cheats Sheets are three of the most popular content types on the web currently. It’s crucial to remember, however, that these kinds of registrations are associated with top-of-funnel behavior. 

If you’re noticing that your segmented audiences are consuming Webinars and White Papers elsewhere but you’re only offering a blog and a few PDFs, you could be missing out on some important lead gen opportunities and foregoing some high quality intent signals.

Put Audience Explorer to the Test

The audiences we dove into today are just a teeny, tiny taste of what this tool has inside. With access to more than 300 unique industries and sub-industries, this tool has millions of different audiences to analyze. Hopefully, this tool can give you visibility into consumption behaviors that make your marketing strategy work smarter.

The post How to Inform Your B2B Content Strategy with Real-Time Buyer-Level Insights appeared first on Right Marketing Insider.