Business Podcasts to Subscribe to in 2018

Continued education doesn’t have to come in the form of classrooms and textbooks, you can glean knowledge from many sources. One of the most popular ways to continue learning is listening to podcasts. Podcasts can cover a wide range of subjects from pop culture to politics to business practices. The following podcast recommendations cover topics from entrepreneurship, marketing, and business.

School of Greatness

Host Lewis Howes has overcome his share of adversity. This podcast launched in 2013 and has grown to be one of iTunes’ top-rated Business and Self-Development podcasts. The mission on ‘School of Greatness’ is to empowerer listeners to achieve success in the face of adversity, and he shares not only his story but the stories of the guests that come on the show.

Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do

Thom Singer started this podcast hoping to enable a new generation of leaders to use his knowledge of business relationships, sales, networking and more, including fitness, trends, and entrepreneurial spirit.

Product Hunt Radio

Product Hunt is great for the B2C business person, and those interested in current product trends. It focuses on physical products and how they’re created, the marketing behind them that turns them into global brands, and guests’ takes on productivity, management and investment.

Rocketship.fm

With big-name guests, this weekly podcast covers everything about building a startup from developing a product to finding and converting a customer base. This show is great for anyone in the B2B or B2C world.

The Influencer Podcast

Julie Solomon, marketing strategist, publisher and influencer hosts this show and brings in guests to talk about their experiences in the world of influencer marketing, as well as sharing insights into how to grow, engage with and persuade an audience.

Smart Passive Income

Learn how Pat Flynn author of The Smart Passive Income Blog uses all of his online blog and business strategies, as well as marketing tips and income sources which will help you take the next steps forward with your online businesses, blogs and more.

Copyblogger FM

In a world where content is king, it never hurts to strive for an improved approach to writing and content marketing. Host Sonia Simone and a rotating panel of experts discuss news, trends, and updates in copywriting, email marketing, conversion, content marketing and more.

The Science of Social Media

Buffer has a great blog, and the podcast they produce is just as influential. The content presented covers everything from the state of social media marketing, new algorithms, and third-party tools to maximize your social media management. This is a great podcast for everyone from beginners to the well seasoned social media practitioner.

Like this post? Read more at http://steverenner.com/blog-2/

Marketing Trends To Expect in 2018

As 2017 comes to a close it’s time to look to the future to predict what will be the biggest trends in marketing. With only a month left in the year, now is the time to reevaluate your current strategies and start working on new ones to match the technologically focused consumer. Here’s what you should be looking for this coming year.

Death of organic reach on Facebook

In the past, it was easy to see results when marketing on Facebook just by having a page out for people to find. Those days are in the past, as many marketers are reporting decreased organic traffic, leading to slowed growth and decreased conversions from social media to the website. This is due to changing algorithms that make it more difficult for non-sponsored posts to reach into the newsfeeds of consumers, but also because of the steadily increasing presence of businesses on social media.

What to do:
Start investing in a paid Facebook strategy. Over 50 million businesses use Facebook, and most are feeling the effects of the shift from organic to paid reach. Buffer’s Facebook advertising guide is a great resource for those new to the process.

Landing pages

The landing page is often overlooked, but it is one of the fastest and least expensive ways to increase conversions. A website is always a necessity, but a landing page is a focused way to ensure that your customer is seeing exactly what they want or need to see without distractions and multiple calls to action that distract from the main goal.

What to do:
Build focused landing pages for each campaign. Follow these steps for great form optimization. Build more pages for more conversions. This Hubspot article will tell you why this is so important for growth.

Integrated influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has become increasingly important to marketers, and because Instagram is becoming (for many) one of the top social media platforms, the use and understanding of influencer marketing in all verticals is becoming a valuable tool.

What to do:
Prepare for a boost of companies using influencers, especially on social media. Many companies will begin building long-term partnerships with influencers, allowing them to become brand ambassadors. However, be aware of the FTC’s strict rules and regulations about endorsement posts. The key measurements to track this year for influencer marketing are KPI and ROI.  Learn the basics of influencer marketing here, and learn how to find the right influencers here.

Personalized content

Personalized content has been having a moment lately, and the moment will continue into the new year. Hubspot reports that personalized content does 42% better than non-personalized content. It is important to understand your audience and to use the new shift towards emotional content to engage with your customers and to increase that “shareability” of your content. Storytelling with creative content will be a big theme this year.

What to do:
Begin with gathering information about your audience, even if it is as basic as their name and email address. Make the content you use to acquire this something relevant that will grab attention and encourage conversions. With the information you gather, you can begin to target your users, and provide them with content that matches their needs and lifestyle. Read more about personalized marketing here.

 Like this post? Read more at http://steverenner.com/blog-2/

Marketing Trend: Personalized Marketing

Consumers are not strangers to personalized content. People tend to love when they receive offers and content that really fit them and their needs. Think back to email marketing. As a consumer, you may receive emails that seem to know everything about what you are looking for from any number of stores. This is a big example of how personalized marketing can work, but there are also social media ads, banner ads, video ads and more, which can all be personalized to the consumer, either through data collection or extensive targeting.

The key to creating great personalization is having a strategy to create data-driven content. With the content you build using the data you have, your marketing options expand innumerably, and include personalized content.

Defining personalized marketing

Beyond email, personalized marketing may be something you are not familiar with as a consumer, but you will realize that you have been seeing it every day.

The Content Marketing Institute defines the concept of personalized content by saying the following: “content personalization is a strategy that exploits visitor or prospect data to deliver relevant content based on the interests and preferences of the target audience.” You can read more about the approach to content personalization here.

Want to learn more? These companies are doing personalized marketing right!

Amazon

Online retail giant Amazon’s product curation and product recommendations are not new features but are definitely some of the biggest examples of personalized marketing around right now. Each section on your Amazon homepage should harken back to not only your purchase history but also your browsing history and streaming history on Amazon Video.

Spotify

Recommendations for music, compiled playlists and the “Discover Weekly” feature are all built on a Spotify user’s “taste profile”. When you are listening to music, data is taken from each listening session to create stations that fit in with that profile.

Coca-Cola

As discussed in an earlier post about user-generated content, Coca Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign has remained a staple for the brand since it’s 2011 beginnings, and one reason why is because the personalization factor of finding your own name (especially with the correct spelling or if you have an unusual name) keeps consumers purchasing and engaging with the brand as they find their names.

Facebook

Facebook is already a personalized experience just based on the nature of how it is used, but the addition of “Friendship History Videos” and other personalized options for photos as well as the obvious page, event and friend suggestions make Facebook not only a great platform for individual personalization but also great for marketers looking to target a very specific audience.

Netflix

Netflix is an essential part of many households today, and their rating system is a great way to sort through the amount of content that is available to stream. When you see a show or movie on Netflix you’ll see a rating amount out of five stars. Contrary to normal reviews and ratings, the stars appear based on how Netflix’s algorithm believes you will rate the content based on your past activity.

Personalized content and marketing are a great way to reach your audience even further and perhaps you’ve even seen some other great examples. Share your experiences with personalized marketing in the comments section.

 Like this post? Read more at http://steverenner.com/blog-2/

Marketing Trend: Expiring Content

Have you ever opened an email telling you that there is a “limited time only” sale, then went on to click that ad to shop even if you haven’t purchased anything from that store in years? Placing a hard and fast deadline on a sale or promotion is nothing new in marketing and sales, but with the growth of content marketing, there is now an influx of content only available for a limited time, otherwise known as “Expiring Content”.

One Day Only! Defining Expiring Content:

Moz.com defines expiring content  as “content on a website that is only relevant for a limited period of time.” The easiest examples of widespread expiring content are Snapchat and Instagram Stories. Posts expire 24 hours after being published. In a world where mobile marketing strategy is becoming more and more prevalent, expiring content is perfect for breaking through the clutter of too much available content.

Why use expiring content?

Exclusivity

If the idea of expiring content seems foolish, now is the time to reconsider. Psychologically, the human brain often desires things that are exclusive or rare. This is due to the Scarcity Principle, a psychological phenomenon that can cause consumers to purchase items or, in the case of expiring content, view posts because they are seen as more valuable because of limited availability.

Relevance

Using expiring content ensures that your content only exists for as long as it is relevant. With this mindset, you can post promotional materials, events, and contests and let the posts filter out on their own after the window of opportunity for your audience has passed.

Improved Social Reach

Snapchat and Instagram aren’t the only platforms where you can have expiring content. Facebook has a feature that allows you to set your posts to expire and you can set up blog posts on WordPress to phase out over time as well.  Some studies have shown that having expiring content can improve your social reach due to your own irrelevant older content phasing out to clear the pathways for new content to be seen.

With more proven benefits, improved reach and SEO, expiring content is making its mark on the marketing world. Will you try expiring content in your next marketing strategy?

 Like this post? Read more at http://steverenner.com/blog-2/

Why Email Marketing Shouldn’t Be Forgotten

Since the beginning of the internet, email has been one of the top ways we communicate. Regardless of the inception of chat apps, texting, and social media, email usage consistently grows each year. Despite these statistics, email marketing isn’t the main focus of many businesses, which is a shame for many reasons. With email marketing you can grow your business easily. Not convinced? Check out these reasons why email marketing should be a part of your marketing and sales strategies.

Mobile

Email can be accessed in a number of ways, and with at least half of US cellphone users accessing their email on their phones along with the ability for email to be accessed on tablets and other mobile devices, email can reach customers on a much larger scale that incurs less cost than SMS marketing.

Coupons and Bargain Hunters

Sending special offers and coupons to customers through email can cause a hesitant buyer to go through with a purchase. Driving engagement with customers is one of the most effective ways that email drives sales. Free shipping, and “buy one, get one” offers are shown to be the most attractive to customers, and with these offers you can increase conversion even within time constraints.

Versatility

Because email marketing is such a customizable marketing tool, it is extremely easy to not only use it for multiple purposes but also to combine it with the rest of your marketing tactics. Creating an integrated marketing strategy with email is one of the easiest ways to maintain the strength of your marketing efforts.

Investment

A recent study found that 85% of US retailers consider email marketing one of the most effective ways to reach customers. With the ability to reach gigantic numbers of customers for a very low price, matched with the effectiveness of this tactic, it’s no wonder that businesses feel that email marketing is worth so much. If doing email blitzes on your own sounds daunting, there are many tools that you can use to develop a highly effective email campaign. These are some of the top resources on the market.

1. MailChimp
2. Constant Contact
3. HubSpot

How have you used email marketing to grow your business? Do you have tools to make it easier? Let me know in comments!

  Like this post? Read more at http://steverenner.com/blog-2/