Imagine a marketing and sales team working in perfect harmony, seamlessly passing qualified leads from one department to the next. This ideal scenario is made possible through the Closed Loop Marketing Architecture (CLMA), a data-driven approach that aligns teams, optimizes processes and drives revenue growth.
What do Playstation, U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM), Target, Home Depot, Apple iCloud, Snapsave, and Evernote all have in common?
They each have been hacked within the past year resulting in a treasure trove of sensitive information being released.
Society now lives in two worlds; the physical world and a digital one. The information we put online has given hackers the ability to cultivate information over time, chip-away at your digital-self, and execute an attack that spans into both. New viruses combined with new technologies have changed how we must protect our businesses and online investments. DDoS attacks, otherwise known as Distributed Denial of Service attacks, Trojan Horses, BadUSB, as well as malicious codes like SoakSoak and ShellShock (Bash), all effect WordPress websites.
“74,652,825 sites out there are depending on good ol’ WordPress. That’s one site per person in Turkey. Around 50% of this figure (close to 37 million) is hosted on the free WordPress.com. In the realm of self-hosted sites, WordPress accounts for 18.9% of all websites,” as of last year according to an article by ManageWP.
If you’re looking for a marketing automation platform that offers many of the same functionality as the more expensive options, give this SharpSpring review a look! Sharpspring works primarily with agency partners (like Revenue Architects) and is well suited for mid-sized businesses and high end professional sales teams. As an agency, we work with Sharpspring along with other platforms including Eloqua, Hubspot, Pardot and Marketo. We find SharpSpring is an excellent fit for businesses that value inbound marketing. email marketing and integrated CRM. Depending on the solution architecture in your organization, including the existing infrastructure of CRM and Office, SharpSpring may be a fit.
This post highlights features found in marketing automation platforms as well as a few lesser-known features found in SharpSpring. Let’s begin with the most common functions of a marketing automation platform:
Recent studies indicate that financial advisors expect continued strong demand for their services in the next year. Russell Investments third-quarter Financial Professional Outlook indicated that Advisors remain bullish about the capital markets looking out over the next three years.
Source: Russell Investments
However, they worry about investors’ emotional response to market events that could harm their businesses and their clients’ well-being, The Russell Investments study showed market volatility to be the most common topic initiated by clients. A Fidelity Advisor Investment Pulse Survey showed similar results.
“When investors make emotional decisions, they decrease the odds of reaching their financial goals,” said John Hailer, chief executive officer of Natixis Global Asset Management in the Americas and Asia.
How can financial advisors set reasonable expectations with challenges like volatility and low-interest rates?…how can they take the emotion out of investor conversations to set realistic goals and stick to them?
Choosing a marketing automation vendor can be challenging. Whether you are jumping into marketing automation for the first time, or are re-evaluating your current system, it can be a difficult and daunting task – especially with how many options are out there these days. Marketing Automation Selection Criteria can help.
The vendor you choose will have an enormous impact on not only your Marketing Department and marketing efforts, but could easily touch other areas as well such as Sales, Customer Service and IT. It is important to consider these other groups when evaluating various vendors, as they may have requirements, obstacles and questions that should be taken into consideration.
To help make the evaluation process a little easier and more effective, here is a recommended process to follow: Read more
A “build it and they will come” approach to web design is an uniformed approach. Still, some people ignore UX completely or forge ahead with limited knowledge only to find out later that users are bouncing off their brand new web pages like ping pong balls.
Then there’s mobile UX concerns to think about. With mobile devices proliferating and their users becoming more adept at using them, expectations are high. Not only are you expected to have a responsive mobile design, but the overall experience you deliver must be fast and easy for users.
Even if you understand that UX is an essential part of web design and internet marketing, you may still be operating under some misconceptions. Are you really following UX best practices? See if you’ve subscribed to any of these UX myths:
Many independent financial advisory firms are at an inflection point, facing disruptive changes from technology and generational transitions.
Source: Nielsen
It’s all about the customer. Cultivating and managing your customer relationships is essential for effective marketing campaigns, sales, and repeat business. But when your contact list becomes unwieldy or you find that several people within your company are reaching out to the same contact, you know you need to get organized. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs enable you to respond to your customer base with timely communication, targeted marketing campaigns and strategic follow up.
My Pet Peeve: Email ThreadsHow often have you needed to check a customer detail that was in an email thread you received days or weeks ago? You’re hustling to get to a meeting and just can’t find that all important message.
CRMs centralize, store and organize detailed customer data and history logs for easy reference. Help your salespeople improve their effectiveness by sharing information with your team or designating members to manage a particular lead or customer.
It has been well over a decade since the digital revolution went mainstream. However, according to Google, 55% of small businesses don’t even have a website. The vast majority of those that do, have a website that lacks key features necessary to make digital a revenue generating channel. A common reason for this lack of focus is the belief that real business comes via traditional channels like referrals.
The problem is that referrals are heavily influenced by digital channels. Your client base needs to know exactly what makes you great and be energized to make a referral. Digital channels provide the necessary energy. A well thought out digital strategy is vital to guide the referral process.
John Stone from Revenue Architects asked me this question over lunch. The answer I gave him got me thinking about a conversation I had at a conference a few years back.
I was approached by a business executive who asked me what is the difference between usability and user experience. My answer: Here’s the big difference, user experience is all about ROI (Return on Investment).
Source: RevenuePerform.com
The start of any good user experience begins with a clear business goal. Whether it is a mobile app, website, or even a physical product a good user experience fulfills that need. Start by asking yourselves the hard questions – What do I want my users to do? What do I want them to accomplish? What is the call to action? Given that end goal, a good user experience optimizes the path and flow that they will need to take.