TED Talks: The Best of TED for Business, Tech, Marketing and More

Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. If you talk about what you believe, you will attract those who believe what you believe.”

Elizabeth Gilbert: Your Elusive Creative Genius

“I think it’s better if we encourage our great creative minds to live.”

Richard St. John: 8 Secrets of Success

“TEDsters do have fun working. And they work hard. I figured, they’re not workaholics. They’re workafrolics.”

Elon Musk: The Mind Behind Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity …

“Through most of our life, we get through life by reasoning by analogy, which essentially means copying what other people do with slight variations. And you have to do that. Otherwise, mentally, you wouldn’t be able to get through the day. But when you want to do something new, you have to apply the physics approach. Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It’s really counterintuitive. So I think that’s an important thing to do, and then also to really pay attention to negative feedback, and solicit it, particularly from friends. This may sound like simple advice, but hardly anyone does that, and it’s incredibly helpful.”

Tony Robbins: Why We Do What We Do

“My invitation to you is: explore your web, the web in here — the needs, the beliefs, the emotions that are controlling you, for two reasons: so there’s more of you to give, and achieve, too, but I mean give,because that’s what’s going to fill you up. And secondly, so you can appreciate — not just understand, that’s intellectual, that’s the mind, but appreciate what’s driving other people. It’s the only way our world’s going to change.”

David Carson: Design and Discovery

” ‘Don’t mistake legibility for communication.’ Just because something’s legible doesn’t means it communicates. More importantly, it doesn’t mean it communicates the right thing. So, what is the message sent before somebody actually gets into the material?”

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Small Business vs. Startup

When starting a new venture or running an existing business, with the immense amount of financial and personal investment that requires, semantics is the last thing one thinks about. Words like entrepreneur, business owner and CEO get thrown around pretty often, and with the rockstar allure that shows like Shark Tank have brought, their definitions are now practically common knowledge. The new buzzword, floating around the business world is startup, not to be confused with a small business … And so you don’t make that mistake, here is a breakdown!

Startup

Definition: A startup is an entrepreneurial venture which is typically a newly emerged, fast-growing business that aims to meet a marketplace need by developing or offering an innovative product, process or service.

Major Keys:

• Rapid Growth
• Passion
• Innovation
• Market disruption

Small business

Definition: The definition of a small business is an independently owned and operated company that is limited in size and in revenue depending on the industry.

Major Keys:

• Profit
• Existing
• Longevity
• Market share

Startup vs Small business

A small business can have products or services that have been around for millennia, creating for itself a space in the current market. Small business’ hope to grow quickly, but more important than growth is first revenue and then profit, versus a startup’s main priority being explosive and exponential growth. A startup would put a new spin on an old product or service, or better yet, create something brand new. Startups aren’t concerned with gaining market share, they are here to to turn the existing market on its head. As you can see, although startups and small business’ have similarities, there are some fundamental differences in structure and purpose.

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Examples Of Great Influencer Marketing

In my last post I discussed influencer marketing and its importance to the marketing strategy of businesses, especially in the age of social media and digital marketing. This post will focus on examples of influencer marketing campaigns that I think stand above the rest, and have the numbers to show for it as well!

Nick Offerman and Lagavulin Single Malt Scotch Whisky: My Tales of Whisky Holiday Edition: Nick Offerman’s Yule Log

This campaign started with Nick Offerman’s character on the popular NBC show Parks and Recreation and the character’s particular affection for Lagavulin Whisky. Offerman, the creative team of Parks, and Lagavulin had teamed up previously to create the My Tales of Whisky video series. The success of the original series led to the the holiday edition, a hilariously executed 45 minute one shot take of Offerman sipping whisky by a fire in total silence.

The video was released exclusively in a 3 minute version, then publicly in its 45 minute entirety, and then on Christmas Eve Day, due to incredibly high demand, a 10 hour version was released. Yule Log trended on social media almost immediately, earned 840 million impressions, increased YouTube channel subscribers and viewers.

Chanel New York Fashion Week #newchanel5

97% of fall 2016’s NYFW’s social media interactions occurred on Instagram. Fashion giant Chanel was garnering excitement for the release of their new fragrance, all through influencer marketing. By reaching out to top influencers on the photo sharing site, over 9 million impressions were made, with a branded hashtag (#newchanel5) used on more than 1,600 images. A top influencer in this campaign Jessica Mercedes Kirschner (@jemerced) is known for a lavish lifestyle and fashion sense to match. Her post alone received 26.8k likes and more than 100 comments in the first month it was posted.

Visit Las Vegas and DJ Khaled

To launch their new Snapchat account @VisitLasVegas, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority brought on Snapchat influencer and the major key to the new account’s successful launch: DJ Khaled. Khaled toured around Vegas, showing his followers (he has 6 million of them) around his favorite spots of the city. The launch of the channel was on May 29th, 2016. After two days, the new channel clocked in at 25,000 new followers and 400,000 views. It’s no wonder why DJ Khaled is called “The King of Snapchat”

Jon Stewart and Arby’s

Jon Stewart was known for many things while on the Daily Show, and one of the gimmicks that he used often was making fun of Arby’s, bashing the products the brand puts out. But it didn’t seem like Arby’s minded. In fact, the banter between Stewart and Arby’s led to a highly successful influencer marketing campaign. When Stewart announced that he would be leaving the Daily Show, Arby’s sent this tweet:

Stewart brought up the tweet on his last day at the Daily Show and during a commercial break Arby’s aired their “Thank You For Being a Friend?” commercial and from there a great relationship was born.

Arby’s created two commercials starring Stewart, and even named a sandwich after him. Turning this critic into an influencer was both hilarious and effective.

Influencer marketing can happen in many ways, and certain strategies or campaign types won’t always be the right fit.  Try taking a look at different campaigns and trying to envision your business using these techniques with your influencers. Find what you can use for the best results or try something completely new. The possibilities with influencer marketing are endless!

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Staying Focused at Work During the Holidays

It’s the holiday season and for many, this time of year can lead to burnout or just a general lack of motivation. Expectations can be high in both professional and personal lives, so it’s important to stay balanced. I have a few tricks that I use to stay focused this time of year, that help keep morale high and keep me working hard. Try some out and see what works for you.

Make A Checklist

Keeping track of what you need to accomplish is important at anytime, but at the holidays when your thoughts can be in a million places it’s helpful to have a way to look at the big picture and be able to cross things off of it to feel like you’re moving forward in your responsibilities.

Take Time Off

If you are able, take some days off that you can use just for yourself to clear your head, not just days off to celebrate the holidays. It’s easy to get caught up with parties, and events and family obligations, but the constant commitments can make it feel like your schedule is more full than it is. Take a day or two to feel a little less weighted down.

Plan Events With Your Co-Workers

Teams can often feel disconnected during the holidays when people are gone or distracted. Plan a gift exchange, an outing or a whole office party to ramp up the community feeling and reconnect with those around you. My team just celebrated at our office holiday event last week!

Don’t Multitask

Work on one project at a time. Having multiple projects going on at once makes your workload feel triple the amount it is, and you do better work when you are only focused on one aspect. When you need a break from one thing, move to your next project and so on, but commit to only having one thing going at a time. You get more done and your work seems less daunting.

Commit To The Holiday Spirit

Being positive during the holidays isn’t easy for everyone, but by having a good attitude and positive outlook you not only make yourself positive, but also those around you. Keep the mood light and help others that may be having a hard time as well.

The days leading up to the holidays can either fly by or take forever to get through, but you can make them productive regardless. Let me know how you stay motivated in the comment section below.

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The Secret to Building Your First 100 Twitter Followers

I regularly speak to clients, business contacts and people at our conferences who want to use Twitter more, or who have struggled with getting past the initial stages of using the site. If you are an experienced Twitter user, then hopefully you’ll still be able to share this post with friends or clients who are just starting out in building their brand or their own profile on the site. 

Getting Started

There are plenty of guides and blog posts that cover the basics of signing up for Twitter account and advice about how to use the site in general. Twitter has released their own Twitter for Business minisite, and Mashable have compiled a number of blog posts into a Guide Book.

I think it’s valuable to think in terms of building an early base of followers, since the flywheel effect comes into play beyond a certain threshold. I would pick the number 100 as a target where anybody can say that they’re beyond the ‘beginner’ stage, and where all the advice from the other guides becomes much more applicable.

Preparing for Promotion

If this is a brand new Twitter account, the first few tweets will demonstrate that you’re actually using the service and lets potential followers know what to expect. This makes gaining followers a little easier.

After creating the account, you should immediately try to publish a few interesting tweets. If there are things on your mind about your industry or area of expertise, then make a comment or two. You could make insightful remarks about your niche or publish links to useful or interesting content (though avoid promoting your own content at this stage.) You could even supplement these tweets with less formal comments, such as something funny, a comment about something that’s been bothering you, or just mention when the weather is going to change.

You can also share images and photos. When photos are shared through certain prefered services (such as Twitter’s mobile apps, yFrog, TwitPic and Instagram), they will be added to your own photo gallery. Thumbnails of these pictures will be displayed on your profile page, which will make your profile look more interesting and can encourage people to follow you. 

First 100 Followers

Depending on the existing influence of you or your company, your first 100 followers might be stunningly simple to find, or particularly difficult. I’ve suggested some straightforward ways to build this solid base of followers.

Your Friends & Contacts

The first batch of people you engage with could be coworkers, friends, clients or partners. Aim for people with whom you have a close relationship, so that you can simply email or ask them directly; friends won’t mind you asking, and you could easily pick up your first couple of dozen followers this way.

Your Blog

You can promote the account on your blog, by writing about it and explicitly asking people to follow you. (These readers can visit your Twitter profile to see the types of thing you’ve published already, and make a decision about whether to follow you.) Your blog should be a great source of followers, since the readers are already a self-selected group that trust you enough to subscribe and are interested in what you have to say: this translates well to having an interest in following you.

Email Lists

If you have an email newsletter that gets sent to certain people, you could use that list to promote the account as well. If you have separate lists for different audiences, it’s worth trying to tailor your description to each of them.

For example, a recruitment company with an email list of HR Managers could tell them something like “We’ll be sharing new advice from our recruitment agents about finding and retaining the very best employees.”

Meanwhile, the same company’s email to job-seekers might say “I’ll be publishing the best new job listings on Twitter, so you could find out about the hottest opportunites before anyone else.”

Promoting your Twitter handle

You should also begin using your Twitter username on and off the web, so that people can find and follow you without you explicitly asking them to. There are many easy ways to do this such as:

• Include a link in your email signature
• Add your Twitter URL / Name on print media such as business cards and flyers
• Consider including it on any advertising
• Include a link to your Twitter account anywhere you participate online, such as in forums or when blogging.

Finding People to Follow

Through your regular use of Twitter, you’ll discover interesting and relevant people to follow. However, it will be important to find some relevant people to follow early on.

The focus should be on accounts who you are legitimately interested in following or talking to. For example, suitable accounts might include:

• Interesting or well connected people from your region
• Local companies, restaurants, events, etc.
• Other accounts focused on your business niche
• People with similar interests to you, etc.

Three particular methods for finding these people are listed below:

1. Twitter Search

Twitter’s advanced keyword search tool (more details below) will let you find people who are tweeting about particular topics. It also allows you to restrict your search to a geographic area. For example, I might look for “seattle mariners” or “520 bridge” to find people have an affiliation with or live in my area.

2. Twitter Lists

The official ‘Lists’ feature allows you to view user-generated lists of account. Finding lists created around a particular topic may give you a selection of people worth following. (TheNextWeb has more information about Twitter lists.)

You can find the lists that a particular user has created by following the ‘Lists’ link on their Twitter page.

3. Third Party Services

There are numerous third-party sites to help discover users on Twitter. We also recommend third party services such as Listorious, WeFollow and Twellow to search for relevant groups of people.

One of the most useful services, FollowerWonk allows you to search the profile bio text of Twitter users, which can help to find users in particular niches or local regions.

Sharing Content

There will be two distinct types of tweet that you publish. The first type is one which you decided to write, independent of others. The second are is reactive to what else is happening on Twitter. Early on, I recommended that you post tweets of the former at least once or twice a day. These updates could include:

• A comment from you that demonstrates expertise of thought leadership in some aspect of your niche
• A link to news or blog content that your followers might find interesting
• Photos that are either taken yourself or found online

In addition to creating content, it is important to engage with users more directly. At minimum, this should include checking and responding directly to direct messages (DMs) and @ mentions from other users. (The @Connect link on the site lets you see people who have mentioned or responded to you. In addition, various smartphone apps will alert you when someone mentions you in a tweet.)

We recommend checking relatively frequently and responding to these messages quickly. Whether people are asking you a question or just mentioning you, a quick response will be well received by the other person.

Other Conversations

In addition to seeing things that people have said explicitly to you, scan through the content posted by the people you follow. Are there interesting posts that you would like to comment on, or conversations that you’d like to join? Go ahead and respond to anything that people have posted.

Remember that people on Twitter don’t mind receiving responses or comments from people they’ve not talked to or met before. Don’t feel you have to stick to any off-line social conventions about butting in to a conversation: this is Twitter, and people have only posted content looking for a reaction or response.

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Why Marketers Should Care About Wikipedia

Creating a good Wikipedia article involves careful research, good grammar, the addition of pictures and using appropriate vocabulary, making Wiki writers a tempting choice for a lot of people. Wikipedia, being an online encyclopedia has a very strict set of guidelines for its content. This means that you cant just write whatever you wish about the company, despite the best of intentions. You need to document your sources and follow the manual of guidelines outlined by Wikipedia for its articles. The stringent standards by Wikipedia can dissuade companies, business people and individuals from publishing Wikipedia articles about their company or selves.

I assume that you’re familiar with Wikipedia; if you’re looking for an official primer, I recommend a look at Learning the Ropes and How to edit a page for all the technical information you’ll need.

Why SEOs and Internet Marketers should care about Wikipedia
The benefits of hiring experts to write your Wikipedia article for you are numerous. First, you will avoid the bias that most people unknowingly put in to articles they write about themselves or affiliated companies. Second, the writers are already well versed in the guidelines and requirements of Wikipedia. They will save you a lot of time and hassle in the creation of an article. Regardless of your own writing skills or English comprehension level, you can get a professional and flawless article published on one of the world’s most visited and respected sites.

To begin, here are things you can do that will always be helpful to your page:

• Search for and fix spelling mistakes, e.g.: site:en.wikipedia.org Tuseday
• Look at the categorized list o articles needing images, pick a topic you are interested in and see if you can provide images for any of these pages. (Read the images and image use policy pages first.)
• Help overcome vandalism by monitoring edits with a tool such asMike’s Wiki Tool. This highlights new edits to you, which you can assess and revert if necessary.
• Think of any specialist knowledge you have, and find ways to add useful content to the relevant pages, particularly if you know of trustworthy references that can be included in the articles. (N.B.: don’t choose a topic like SEO; think of your hobbies, academic subjects, etc.)
• Search the list of Stub categories to find partially built articles that you could contribute to and improve.
• Create new pages (read: Your first article.) You may know of something valuable that is missing from the project, or visit the lists of Requested articles and Most wanted articles to find pages that the community would like to be created.
• Add references from news stories to appropriate pages.
• Find articles that link to disambiguation pages, and link them to the correct article.

Some tips for making edits to pages:

• Use the talk pages (click ‘Discussion‘ tab above an article) to discuss potential changes to an article, and to catch up on discussion about an article before you make edits
• Check the page history before editing (click ‘History‘ tab above an article) to check you are not jumping into the middle of an Edit war.
• When making edits, do leave an edit summary and do preview changes before you save the page
• Add pages to your Watchlist; this allows you to see edits made to your watched pages at a glance.
• Use the ‘What Links Here‘ sidebar link to see internal links to an article.

Wikipedia for SEO & Internet Marketing

If you have a website that you are promoting, it’s not unreasonable to link to it from Wikipedia, but want to make sure you are not submitting spam. Let’s get back to the bullet points:

• How can your site improve Wikipedia? Check the External link page for the criteria regarding which pages are appropriate to include in the ‘External links’ section of an article.
• Some article have unreferenced facts and need citations. Check if your site is a reliable source on a topic, in which case it may be appropriate.
• Find Wikipedia pages that may be related to the site. Use the Wikirank tool to see the number of daily visitors a page receives.
• Make sure the page is good; it should contain useful, well written content. Make edits to the article to improve it.
• To add a reference within an article, read the page about Citing sources and look at the sample code on the Cite web. Use an accurate title, probably the title of the page being linked to.
• As the guidelines linked to above explain (and as other editors will tell you if you stray into the territory) the project won’t benefit from linking to sites that are not authoritative, or that are very commercial (e.g.: they are sales/promotion pages or exist only to generate advertising revenue.)

Being linked to from a Wikipedia page can bring significant traffic to a site. Here are three of the top reasons why:

1. Referred traffic

This can be particularly true on a short article with only one or two useful looking references.

2. NoFollow does not mean NoUse

Can a link from Wikipedia actually help a page rank? Over at SEOMoz, Will hinted that Wikipedia links may be used for discovery, and may even pass weight.

3. Scraper Sites

Wikipedia is available to copy and republish under a GNU license, so the articles are often available elsewhere online. There are even ‘scraper sites’ that copy most or all of the articles.

4. Bonus: Wikipedia as an authoritative directory

An extra benefit of being linked to from Wikipedia, is that if someone is looking for an authoritative page on a topic to link to, Wikipedia may well be the first place they look to find such a link.

Online Reputation Management and Wikipedia

If you’re managing the online reputation of a company, brand or individual, Wikipedia can either be a blessing (having it ranking highly can reduce the visibility of a less neutral page) or a curse (see: Wiki-Circularity.)

Back to the bullet points, beginning with how to make a Wikipedia page rank higher for your search term:

• Wikipedia is very bad at redirecting pages when titles / URLs change. Hence, decide exactly what phrase you want to rank for before you begin, and make sure that the article page is moved before you begin, if needs be. See: Moving a page and Merging and moving pages.
• To help a Wikipedia article rank for a specific term, work to build internal links to the page. Using appropriate search queries, you could find articles that mention the topic, but that don’t link to the page; update them to do so.

However, if a Wikipedia page is causing reputational issues for you or a client, you have a variety of options.

• To begin: if there are libelous comments on a page about a living person, Wikipedia has very thorough guidelines regarding biographies of living people. This page includes details of how to deal with issues of defamation; the BLP Noticeboard can be used to report and discuss such issues.
• For issues not regarding an individual, you will want to temper or remove the offending content from the page. If the content is not written from a Neutral Point of View, this is a good reason to edit it. Be aware of the project’s rules about conflicts of interest, and do consider Wikipedia’s dispute resolution
• If an issue exists for a brand / person that doesn’t fulfill the criteria for notability, then you could apply for the article to be deleted. This happens via a proposal for deletion or speedy deletion.
• It can be important to respond to such issues quickly. Since Wikipedia is free to copy and duplicate, incorrect information could be scraped from the site and published elsewhere online, and fixing the issue at the source wouldn’t remove all published versions of the false content.
• Before the page is deleted, check the ‘What links here‘ page, to find its internal links. After deletion, remove these links from the other articles.

So, that’s the semi-brief run through. A couple of extra pointers would be:

• Don’t just build content on the site, but build relationships too. If you are friendly with various editors (particularly those who edit the pages of any clients who could potentially suffer from Online Reputation Management issues) then you can call on them to make or revert edits if the worst happens.
• Having a number of Wikipedia users within your organization can be very useful.
• Don’t just use your Wikipedia accounts for client work, as your client list could become very obvious to someone who realizes. Contribute across a range of topics, and try to do it regularly to keep you account strong and trusted.

Leave your comments below!

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How the Internet of Things Affects Responsive Design

While design can be hard to quantify as an investment, responsive web design has literally paid off for some companies. For example, when Walmart Canada implemented a responsive web design to their website, they increased conversions by 20% and mobile orders by a whopping 98%.

Similarly, according to Mobile Marketer, Kia uses their responsive websites to communicate with consumers on mobile and tablet devices through their content marketing. These responsive websites also serve as the foundation of in-dealership experiences. Kia’s national manager for digital and CRM David Schoonover touches on an interesting point about how content must also be designed to be responsive – because users on their mobile phones will likely be reading for shorter amounts of time than desktop or tablet users, content must also be shortened in order for responsive web design to be at its most effective.

In addition to desktop, mobile, and tablet, there are two other aspects to responsive web design: TV and the Internet of Things. Connected TV is the technical term for any television connected to the internet. TVs are unusual to design for because of the differences in user postures, input capabilities, display properties, and navigation styles (which are practically opposite to computers or phones). Users typically lean back when they’re watching the TV and use a remote control to move around the user interface. The direct antithesis of mobile devices, the image is high resolution and extremely far away on connected TVs. (For more information, see web interfaces master Bill Scott’s Designing for Mice and Men.)

Media companies have already conceived of new ways to connect with consumers through TV. For example, remember how Disney used to send free VHS or DVDs to anyone interested in Disneyland? Disney lets users browse through vacation offerings through its new TV app. Retailer Marks & Spencer recently launched a lifestyle app for TV. Brands, much like networks, don’t have to create their own content. They can easily be curators for programming.

Connected TV is on the rise and will be extremely popular in the future. Designing for it requires large fonts and large images (because the user is so far away); it also means you should keep in mind that the user will be navigating with a remote control. However, it’s still the smaller aspect of an even larger trend: the Internet of Things.

“The Internet of Things is the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment.” GigaOM predicts that there will be 24 billion devices connected to the Internet of Things by 2020.

The most tangible example in today’s world is wearable technology. Technology is moving towards broader contextual awareness made possible by more sensors in devices (such as the iPhone 5S’s M7 motion co-processor). The future includes technology like Google’s Project Tango, a device that can create a 3D image of the environment it is in. This opens up doors for more situational contexts, which means more tailored content and engagement. For example, car companies can know when a user sits in a car and display relevant image to connect through their branded service.

Closing Thoughts

As your customers all start to use a wider variety of devices and move through these various channels, they’ll stop engaging with you if you don’t move with them. This is why responsive design is crucial for brands and companies connecting with prospective and current customers. As the pace of technology increases, responsive design will be one of the prevalent solutions that many media companies and brands will find essential to connecting with their audiences.

Make Email Essential to Your Content Marketing Strategy

If you go to any internet marketing event, you’ll be sure to hear one thing over and over again: content marketing. This hot new art and science of being an effective brand publisher is more than just a trend; it’s the atomic bomb of all marketing.

As content marketing rises in importance, email marketing is also becoming a tried and true channel for reaching people where they gather every day: their inbox. Why? Because people are constantly checking their email. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing yields an estimated 4,300% ROI.

While these seemingly separate practice areas of content marketing and email marketing are marching forward in parallel, they’re actually on a collision course.

The intersection of content marketing and email marketing is delivering branded editorial content via email. Here’s the big opportunity: Use email to re-engage users with personalized content selected based on their history and demonstrated interests across other digital channels.

So, why does content marketing deserve special treatment? Branded editorial has some very distinct challenges and opportunities that set it apart from typical promos and offers:

• Content is has a long shelf life. The best brand content never expires. This is because people who are interested in a topic, say Garden Homes, are likely to be interested in that subject for an extended period of time.

• Content has a ton of meta data. Editorial content has many words and a variety of formats, so there’s much more meta data that can be used to select it.

• Brands have a lot of it. The best content marketers have hundreds of pieces of content. A content personalization solution needs to be able to analyze, classify, reformat and target large volumes of content.

The same thinking applies across categories. For example, consider Delta Faucet, who through its Inspired Living hub offers a range of how-tos, design ideas and trend articles. They knew that their content portfolio covered a wide range of interests that didn’t fit neatly into a one-size-fits-all or segment based approach. So, by individually personalizing their overall content experience, Delta Faucet has been able to drive a nearly 30% lift in engagement.

The best content marketers are now thinking about email and content as connective tissue for the broader digital saga. Leveraging data across channels to develop a predictive approach to content selection—in email as well as other channels—is proving to be an essential technique for driving repeat engagement and ultimately building long-lived relationships with customers.

But, how does this method of cross-channel content sequencing actually impact your email marketing efforts though? One major, US grocery brand recently added such personalized content to their email newsletter programs—leveraging past topic interests in other channels—and saw up to a 180% lift in the email click-to-open rate. Importantly, they reduced the time needed to manually curate editorial sections of email by 99%.

How can your brand start moving the needle on this front? Here are three steps the best brands are taking to unify their email and content strategies in the most optimal ways:

• Audit your content. It sounds basic, but it’s absolutely essential to have a complete and comprehensive understanding of your content portfolio. Key questions: How many pieces are there? What formats and lengths are represented? What types of topics and subtopics are reflected and how often are you publishing?

• Audit your email. In other words, know what you’re sending. Key questions: What is your brand’s total email footprint? For any given type of subscriber what does the totality of volume and types of email look like? Which email products are best poised for including or featuring personalized content selections and which ones should potentially be exempt?

• Define success. You want to make your content and email marketing strategies work together better and deliver a more personalized experience. What does actual success look like and what are the key metrics that tell you you’re doing well?

Bringing the two worlds of content marketing and email marketing together to support each other can be highly beneficial and it can help your brand capitalize on two of the most important practice areas of modern marketing. By taking a data-driven approach and pursuing a well-defined marketing technology roadmap, today’s modern marketers can effectively serve their customers better than ever.

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Game-changing Marketing Moments of 2016

This year has been rather transformative for marketing. As customer behaviors and attitudes continue to evolve right along with the advent of technology, marketers remain under tremendous amount of pressure to launch effective campaigns, and quickly. So, with that in mind, let us reflect on the past few months and see how it can help shape the months ahead. Below are the 5 most influential marketing stories that caught my eye this year.

1. Companies Take a Strong Stance on Social Issues

Hopping on the social issue bandwagon is a great way for companies to show consumers that they’re not all business. But not all well-intentioned initiatives work out for the best. Take Starbucks’ backlash in an attempt to “stimulate conversation, compassion and action around race in America,” with their Race Together campaign. Instead of a real conversation, the company was met with hostility and snarky comments via Twitter as one customer tweeted: “I get what Starbucks is trying to do, but nah. I’m just in there trying to get a caramel macchiato.”

As consumers demand further transparency from the brands they love to hate and hate to love, we can expect even more companies to take on social issues in the years ahead. Of course, it’s important that these initiatives strike the right tone and achieve effective communication. To ensure that this happens, companies should work on getting a closer looks at their customers, maybe even visiting individual homes and work places to get a more accurate reading on certain likes and dislikes.

2. Live-streaming Demands Transparency

Apps like Snapchat, Periscope, and Meerkat lead the race in what’s next for social media. “The live streaming revolution is upon us, bringing with it a greater level of transparency than we’ve seen before,” explains Andrew Reid, founder and president of corporate innovation at Vision Critical, in his article for Entrepreneur. “One reason may be that there’s something pure and honest about live streaming—the raw, unvarnished, direct connection possible only through a live transmission—and smart brands will continue to capitalize on this factor.” 

Not to be outdone, Facebook also offers a “live” feature to the world’s largest social network. This is a clear indicator that the battle for live-streaming will only intensify as we forge into the unknown matrix of web technology.

3. Consumers Suffer from “Content Shock”

According to Digitalbuzz Blog, within the span of a day 294 billion e-mails are sent, 2 million blogs are posted, 4.7 billion minutes are spent on Facebook, 864,000 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube, and for the first time iPhones are selling faster than humans can procreate. It no wonder people have started to experience what Mark Schaefer is referring to as “content shock.” This phenomenon occurs when people reach a “physiological, inviolable limit to the amount of content they consume.” It is directly associated with the amount of content that companies and individuals mindless create and consume on an hourly basis.

In this content abundance crisis, companies are going to have to start finding more clever ways to stand out, which means consumers will be further targeted. Scheduled annual visits to consumers’ home is definitely on the horizon, where agents will meet with customers to discuss exactly what they like and don’t like about Jennifer Lopez, etc.

4. Ad-Blocking Technology Shakes Up the Industry

Last year, Apple announced upgrades to it’s software, making it super easy to install ad-blocking software on iPhones. Great of the consumer, but a real set back for advertisers. It ensued so much panic; it was the number one topic on conversation at Advertising Week in New York. Some marketing creative predict that the rise of ad blocking software may be good for the industry, but many are afraid they won’t be able to reach the younger, more readily influenced by “what’s cool” crowd. One study revealed that 67.7% of millennials were using ad-blocking technology even before Apple’s announcement.

5. The Collaborative Economy Picks Up Steam

Sometimes referred to as the “sharing economy” or the “gig economy,” the “collaborative economy” is a disruptive phenomenon where people use everyday technology to get the products and services they need from each other, bypassing traditional ways of buying.

In the past year alone, sharing in the collaborative economy has grown by 55 percent. And with forecasts showing that eleven in fifteen Americans will be part of this movement by 2017, this phenomenon has significant implications for enterprise companies. Companies have to figure out how to successfully compete or complement collaborative companies, or risk extinction.

In the end, to remain relevant in 2017 and in the years ahead, companies must invest in their relationship with their customers. They need to stop promising things they can’t fulfill, and start being honest, real people who would never lie to you no matter what. The evolution of marketing isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. Marketers must be nimble.

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