Monday, April 22, 2019

Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes and You Will Crush It, Says Neil Patel

We Want To Make It Easier For People To Go From Inspiration To Purchase, Says Pinterest CEO

We Want To Be the World’s First Global Sleep Brand, Says Casper CEO

Your Choice Isn’t College or Oblivion, Says Mike Rowe

5G is Designed So That Industries Can Use Cellular at Massive Scale, Says Qualcomm CEO

The Secret to Subscription Business Models is to Think About Your Customers, Says Zuora CEO

Automation Will Not Kill the Need for Human Skills In Manufacturing, Says Allegion CEO

Preparing Your Business To Go Up In A Down Economy

Stop Making These 5 Deadly SEO Mistakes, Says Neil Patel

Salesforce CEO: Every B2B and B2C Company Is Becoming a B2B2C Company

5 Strategies to Address New Challenges in Asset Management Marketing

The asset management industry isn’t what it used to be. In the face of continued growth, the market has become increasingly crowded and fiercely competitive. But while competition has increased, differentiation among investment offerings has diminished.

What’s more, there’s been a fundamental shift in the relationship between clients and brands. In today’s customer-centric business climate, investors expect firms to provide them with modern, highly personalized experiences—wherever they are, and on any device they choose.

Consider these statistics:

  • 64% of customers say customer experience is more important than price in buying decisions (Forrester).
  • 70% of buying experiences are based on how customers feel they are being understood (McKinsey).
  • 79% of customers only consider brands that show they understand and care about them (Wunderman).
  • 80% of high-net-worth investors under 40 say they would leave their firm if it fails to provide an integrated channel experience (Frost & Sullivan).

Today’s evolving industry landscape has introduced unexpected challenges for asset management firms—and marketing leaders are under pressure to keep up.

Two Essential Elements of a Modern Marketing Strategy

An asset management marketing team has two central functions: to help recruit and retain advisors and to help acquire and retain clients.

In a crowded market where customer expectations have changed, that’s easier said than done. Indeed, as firms struggle to differentiate themselves, marketers are quickly learning that traditional acquisition and retention strategies are no longer effective.

Today, firms that can build deep, long-term relationships with their target audiences—and deliver truly meaningful experiences—will rise above the competition. The keys to building those relationships are aggregating your customer data and then acting on that information in a timely fashion.

Five Tactics for Creating Clear Differentiation

Here are five ways marketers can deliver superior value to clients—to improve acquisition and retention:

1) Get Personal

Today’s investors expect their communications with asset managers to be personalized and highly relevant to their needs. The challenge, of course, is achieving this level of service at scale; traditional batch and blast emails simply won’t work.

Through the use of demographic and behavioral data, segmentation, and lead scoring, firms can gain the rich, 360-degree customer view they need to deliver the personalized messaging clients expect.

2) Facilitate Communication

Modern clients—regardless of age—have become digitally savvy. They’ve grown accustomed to getting answers and access to information on the go, across multiple devices. The problem is, many asset management firms developed their various touch points in silos, thereby creating a disjointed and sometimes disorienting customer experience.

Delivering connected communications requires an omnichannel approach. The right automation solution should allow teams to deliver seamless conversations—as clients (and advisors) move from their phones to their laptops to their tablets, and beyond—all from a single platform. 

3) Build Trust

Asset management is a high-stakes service and building client trust is crucial. While providing a personal touch is central to creating meaningful relationships, steps must be taken to safeguard client privacy.

Asset management firms must adhere to strict regulations surrounding marketing investment management and the handling of client funds. Indeed, compliance is a fundamental concern. Marketing leaders must ensure that their systems—and their marketing teams—are always up to date on new rules and regulations.

A trusted engagement platform, with high-security standards, will enable marketers to deliver personalized experiences, across multiple touch points—with a keen eye on privacy and regulatory compliance.

4) Find Truth

Historically, the asset management industry has been cautious about new MarTech trends. As a result, many marketing teams are still operating on outdated, disparate systems, including their CRM solutions.

Building and nurturing meaningful client relationships requires a single source of data truth. By creating a centralized repository of data and insights, marketers can move from a reactive acquisition and retention strategy—to a proactive one. A single source of truth will also help brands deliver consistent messaging across sales and marketing.

An automated marketing solution that easily integrates with CRM platforms—as well as multiple solution partners and open APIs—is essential. By gathering multiple data points in one location, it will provide the single source of truth marketers need to create the personalized experiences clients demand.

5) Prove ROI

For many marketing leaders, creating a strong marketing strategy is only half the battle. The next step is to prove their efforts are yielding real results for their institutions.

Marketing teams must be able to effectively measure—and continuously improve—the impact of their programs.

A fully optimized marketing engagement platform—one that puts all marketing data into a single view—will enable more robust reporting. Indeed, it will empower teams to move way beyond click-through rates—to measure multi-touch attribution, pipeline, and true ROI.

The post 5 Strategies to Address New Challenges in Asset Management Marketing appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.



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Sunday, April 21, 2019

Event Marketers Are Ignoring the Power of Video—Here’s How to Catch Up

Video ads are one of the most potent tools in a marketing arsenal. So why do so many event marketers ignore it?

According to a 2018 Animoto report on social video trends, 93% of business score new customers from video marketing on social media. Eventbrite research shows that 94% of event creators who use video say it’s effective. While both reports highlight the power of video marketing, they also note that less than half of event marketers actually use this effective tool.

That’s a lot of business to leave sitting on the table.

Video clearly is engaging ticket buyers, but many event marketers are too intimidated to use the medium. After all, video is one of the most daunting types of content to produce. Your skills as an event organizer may not include filming and editing a promotional video—but it’s worthwhile to learn these few basics.

Create event videos that drive buzz

In an increasingly video-driven advertising space, focus your efforts on three essential videos—two before the event and one after:

  • A ticket launch video that builds buzz, encourages registrations, and establishes your event as the place to be this year.
  • A reminder video that answers attendees’ most frequently asked questions leading up to the event.
  • A memorable recap video that offers nostalgia for attendees and serves as a strong marketing asset for your next event.

If you only have the bandwidth to create one video, prioritize based on your brand’s goals. If you want to drive ticket sales, create a launch video. If you want to improve your attendance rate and engage attendees, create an FAQ video. If your goal is creating clips you can use to promote your next event, create a recap video.

When you release these videos certainly matters, but you must also create something that effectively engages your audience. The following three strategies will help you make videos that are informative and compelling:

1. Make the CTA your MVP

Your CTA (call to action) is key because it shows viewers how to take the next step (buying tickets, for example). But how can a CTA call viewers to action if they don’t actually see it?

Although placing your CTA at the end of a video feels natural, many viewers won’t stick around for the entire video. To ensure audiences see your CTA, place it in the middle of your video.

Beyond perfecting the timing of your CTA, you also need to give viewers clear instructions in terms of what they should do. Instead of saying “Buy tickets,” use clear and specific language: “Swipe up to RSVP” or “Click the link in our Facebook event.” People aren’t going to take the next step if they don’t know how, so make your CTA as clear as possible.

2. Use size to strategize your Facebook spend

It’s counterintuitive, but smaller events mean you should put more funding toward Facebook video ads. At 2.27 billion users, according to NBC News, Facebook holds plenty of reach and is ripe for event marketing. Facebook also has more robust ad targeting, support for video, and searchability for events than any other social platform.

Prioritize Facebook in your budget, keeping your event’s size as the key decision maker when allocating funds. Gather any location, demographic, or other important information about your audience, and then tailor your Facebook campaign to that base. Once you’ve homed in on your target, deduce your exact spend and plan the rollout and execution of each piece. By figuring everything out beforehand, your campaign’s resources will stretch further and your ROI will be more concrete.

3. Promote across online channels

Facebook is incredibly powerful, but a powerful video strategy requires more layers. Not everyone in your audience will be active on Facebook—and even if they are, a multichannel approach keeps them thinking about your event as they’re browsing online.

Use video across these digital platforms:

  • Your website: It’s easy to embed promotional videos on your homepage. The Animoto report I mentioned earlier suggests that 86% of businesses engage their audiences through this platform.
  • YouTube: As the second-largest search engine, upload your videos here to build your audience without much additional effort.
  • Email marketing: Animoto reports including the word “video” in an email subject line increases its open rate by 19%. This method offers low-hanging fruit for increased viewership, helps with viewer engagement, and simplifies connecting with attendees post-purchase and post-event.

There’s no better way for your audience to feel the buzz surrounding your event than video. Event organizers might lag behind other industries when it comes to video marketing, but that doesn’t mean it needs to remain the case. Use these marketing tips to take the mystery out of video—and drive sales.

The post Event Marketers Are Ignoring the Power of Video—Here’s How to Catch Up appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.



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How SEO Can Drive Your Marketing Initiatives

Today’s modern marketing department encompasses a variety of roles that blend expertise in both traditional and digital mediums. Hiring for SEO related roles, in particular, has increased by over 40% in the last year.

Companies are injecting more dollars than ever into organic search and content marketing. This strategic shift calls on SEO and marketing teams to move in concert in order to achieve mutual campaign KPIs. Crossing the collaborative divide requires an equally mindful transition towards consistent communication, project management processes, and teambuilding.

Issues with integration

Making two cross-discipline teams work cohesively can be a challenge. About 75% of cross-functional teams fail. In order to mitigate the risk of a poorly-executed campaign, it’s vital to integrate the day-to-day functions of both marketing and SEO teams. To do that, it helps to take a look at some of the common barriers to success.

  • Lack of communication, specifically pertaining to goals
  • No clear method for measuring ROI
  • Siloed mentality or lack of flexibility
  • Gaps in technology adoption

It’s incredibly difficult to strive towards a goal that isn’t clearly defined. Expecting teams with different skill sets to work within ill-defined project parameters is even harder. Scope creep becomes a real issue, alongside a general lack of confidence in project deliverables and team cooperation.

Measuring the impact of a product can also be adversely affected by a lack of clarity. If a project doesn’t have a clear, standardized system for measuring ROI, it becomes difficult for each team to understand the impact of their work and fairly attribute responsibility. This is difficult in any cross-functional scenario, but in the marketing world, where ROI has been historically difficult to measure, it can prove disastrous.

Too often, separate teams become siloed, isolated from the larger department by their specialized skill set. Breaking down creative silos means that valuable information is shared more freely across teams, and the resulting output is more dynamic, which is an extraordinarily valuable thing in the world of marketing. Adapting to current trends in SEO and marketing, as well as being able to execute on them within a joint strategy means being receptive to change.

One barrier to entry for cross-discipline collaboration is a technology adoption gap. Although MarTech software applications accounted for nearly 30% of a CMO’s budget in 2018, certain aspects of technical SEO might be harder to conceptualize and fit under a unified marketing umbrella. Implementing standardized technology tools aimed at promoting collaboration and data analysis is a cornerstone of modern marketing strategy.

Impact on revenue

Successful inter-departmental collaboration can be tied to revenue and positive brand impact. Over 90% of Google traffic is observed on the first page, meaning if you are ranking on the second, third, or tenth page, your marketing efforts are unlikely to be seen.

Social media marketing and content strategy have long been the territory of traditional marketers. Hybridized digital marketers and SEO strategists can help drive marketing objectives centered around the most compelling and technical aspects, bringing to the table a unique understanding of how organic search helps drive brand visibility.

Cross-functional communication provides more visibility into emerging trends, ROI modeling, and organizational needs that can inform marketing spends and strategic focus. Nurturing a basic understanding of the relationship between a brand and its customers also helps marketers and SEO experts alike create smarter strategies and drive more profitable results.

Best practices for fostering collaboration

Fortunately, creating a culture of collaboration doesn’t have to be such a heavy lift. SEO strategists and marketers have similar core competencies. Given the right tools and processes, SEO efforts can help drive marketing objectives and vice versa:

  • Collaboration tools
  • Workflow processes
  • Education and employee engagement

Collaborative tools and software platforms are hitting the market with increasing regularity. Implementing these tools can positively impact the way SEO and marketing teams work together as well as conduct day-to-day job functions. From project management platforms like Asana or Basecamp, to collaborative meeting tools like Slack and Google Hangouts, using a standardized set of tools helps empower organizations with distinct departments and enables remote workers to create compelling campaigns in real-time. This also helps teams establish workflow processes that break large-scale projects down into smaller tasks, allowing them to keep a close eye on potential bottlenecks at all stages of the project management life cycle.

Breaking down organizational silos can do a lot towards creating a shared sense of expertise and a shared vocabulary. Defining project objectives and metrics to track against helps improve the collaboration between SEO and marketing teams since all stakeholders will understand how their efforts and area of expertise play into a shared outcome. Not every marketing objective will be SEO focused, but it’s still important to get stakeholders in the room to talk about keyword targets and opportunities, as well as conduct training sessions.

Keeping employees engaged is one of the best ways to keep collaboration productive and consistent. Scheduling regular standing meetings to go over progress towards objectives, and providing avenues for professional development, certification, and mentoring help cement team building efforts that drive success.

SEO strategy for results

Marketing teams need to be thinking about SEO, and SEO teams need to be thinking about marketing. With more companies throwing their weight behind organic search and adjacent forms of marketing, both teams will be working towards common KPIs. The marketing strategies of the future incorporate a more holistic approach to brand strategy, and companies that are able to foster cross-functional collaboration are setting themselves up to be more able to respond to the changing market.

The post How SEO Can Drive Your Marketing Initiatives appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.



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Don’t Call It a Comeback: Drip Campaigns Have Been Here for Years

I know what you’re thinking: Drip campaigns? They’re about as relevant as Michael Bolton.

But here’s the thing about Michael Bolton: He’s always relevant!

Truth is, the concepts behind drip campaigns—sending communications to customers and prospects on a regular basis—remain as relevant today as ever. The difference is that marketing automation has made this process much more sophisticated.

Now, instead of scheduling the same series of emails to go to the same people on the same day each week, you can send your audience valuable personalized communications based on actions they took, content they engaged with, or segments they fit.

So, while the idea of traditional drip marketing may sound out of date, there are still plenty of key areas where it can come in handy.

Who should be using them? And when?

Great questions!

Email drip campaigns are perfect for new companies with few prospects or businesses with small marketing departments. They’re also ideal for marketers just starting out their careers.

That’s because they’re generally cost-effective and easy to set up and run. They focus on what’s happening in the moment, so there’s limited long-term planning involved. And not many people are required to execute them.

Essentially, all you need to do is create communications, determine a cadence, and send out your messages. This gives you an opportunity to regularly connect with prospects and educate them enough to make a purchase.

Drip marketing can be particularly effective when you’re:

  • Reengaging a cold sales lead: Did a once-promising prospect suddenly abandon you at the one-yard line? Using a series of drip emails, you can educate them on how your product can help solve their problems, reinforce their desire to buy, and nudge them toward the end zone.
  • Providing thought leadership: Not quite sure what your prospects are interested in or where they are in the buying cycle? Staying in touch by providing always-on thought leadership content through an email drip campaign can help you get answers. Plus, it can make sure your brand stays top of mind for your prospects.
  • Delivering customer newsletters: Looking for more cross-sell and upsell opportunities? Drip emails—in the form of customer newsletters—can do the trick. By delivering fresh insights on an ongoing basis, you can highlight customer pain points and introduce readers to new products that can help them overcome their issues.

If nothing else, drip marketing offers your business a great way to regularly remind people why they connected with your brand in the first place.

What drip campaigns are all about

Regardless of how you use them, the most important thing to remember is that drip campaigns are all about building relationships and nurturing leads. To do that, your communications must provide constant value.

Your audience should trust that you’re going to deliver what you promised. Your messages should be relevant to your readers’ needs. The experiences you deliver should be consistent across multiple channels. And your campaigns should be continually tested and optimized so they pack the most punch.

Fail to do all of that and you’ll have to deal with “Unsubscribe” getting the most clicks in your emails.

Download What Is Lead Nurturing? to learn more.

The post Don’t Call It a Comeback: Drip Campaigns Have Been Here for Years appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.



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Saturday, April 20, 2019

Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes and You Will Crush It, Says Neil Patel

We Want To Make It Easier For People To Go From Inspiration To Purchase, Says Pinterest CEO

We Want To Be the World’s First Global Sleep Brand, Says Casper CEO

Your Choice Isn’t College or Oblivion, Says Mike Rowe

5G is Designed So That Industries Can Use Cellular at Massive Scale, Says Qualcomm CEO

The Secret to Subscription Business Models is to Think About Your Customers, Says Zuora CEO

Automation Will Not Kill the Need for Human Skills In Manufacturing, Says Allegion CEO

Preparing Your Business To Go Up In A Down Economy

Stop Making These 5 Deadly SEO Mistakes, Says Neil Patel

Salesforce CEO: Every B2B and B2C Company Is Becoming a B2B2C Company

We Want To Make It Easier For People To Go From Inspiration To Purchase, Says Pinterest CEO

Friday, April 19, 2019

Event Marketers Are Ignoring the Power of Video—Here’s How to Catch Up

Video ads are one of the most potent tools in a marketing arsenal. So why do so many event marketers ignore it?

According to a 2018 Animoto report on social video trends, 93% of business score new customers from video marketing on social media. Eventbrite research shows that 94% of event creators who use video say it’s effective. While both reports highlight the power of video marketing, they also note that less than half of event marketers actually use this effective tool.

That’s a lot of business to leave sitting on the table.

Video clearly is engaging ticket buyers, but many event marketers are too intimidated to use the medium. After all, video is one of the most daunting types of content to produce. Your skills as an event organizer may not include filming and editing a promotional video—but it’s worthwhile to learn these few basics.

Create event videos that drive buzz

In an increasingly video-driven advertising space, focus your efforts on three essential videos—two before the event and one after:

  • A ticket launch video that builds buzz, encourages registrations, and establishes your event as the place to be this year.
  • A reminder video that answers attendees’ most frequently asked questions leading up to the event.
  • A memorable recap video that offers nostalgia for attendees and serves as a strong marketing asset for your next event.

If you only have the bandwidth to create one video, prioritize based on your brand’s goals. If you want to drive ticket sales, create a launch video. If you want to improve your attendance rate and engage attendees, create an FAQ video. If your goal is creating clips you can use to promote your next event, create a recap video.

When you release these videos certainly matters, but you must also create something that effectively engages your audience. The following three strategies will help you make videos that are informative and compelling:

1. Make the CTA your MVP

Your CTA (call to action) is key because it shows viewers how to take the next step (buying tickets, for example). But how can a CTA call viewers to action if they don’t actually see it?

Although placing your CTA at the end of a video feels natural, many viewers won’t stick around for the entire video. To ensure audiences see your CTA, place it in the middle of your video.

Beyond perfecting the timing of your CTA, you also need to give viewers clear instructions in terms of what they should do. Instead of saying “Buy tickets,” use clear and specific language: “Swipe up to RSVP” or “Click the link in our Facebook event.” People aren’t going to take the next step if they don’t know how, so make your CTA as clear as possible.

2. Use size to strategize your Facebook spend

It’s counterintuitive, but smaller events mean you should put more funding toward Facebook video ads. At 2.27 billion users, according to NBC News, Facebook holds plenty of reach and is ripe for event marketing. Facebook also has more robust ad targeting, support for video, and searchability for events than any other social platform.

Prioritize Facebook in your budget, keeping your event’s size as the key decision maker when allocating funds. Gather any location, demographic, or other important information about your audience, and then tailor your Facebook campaign to that base. Once you’ve homed in on your target, deduce your exact spend and plan the rollout and execution of each piece. By figuring everything out beforehand, your campaign’s resources will stretch further and your ROI will be more concrete.

3. Promote across online channels

Facebook is incredibly powerful, but a powerful video strategy requires more layers. Not everyone in your audience will be active on Facebook—and even if they are, a multichannel approach keeps them thinking about your event as they’re browsing online.

Use video across these digital platforms:

  • Your website: It’s easy to embed promotional videos on your homepage. The Animoto report I mentioned earlier suggests that 86% of businesses engage their audiences through this platform.
  • YouTube: As the second-largest search engine, upload your videos here to build your audience without much additional effort.
  • Email marketing: Animoto reports including the word “video” in an email subject line increases its open rate by 19%. This method offers low-hanging fruit for increased viewership, helps with viewer engagement, and simplifies connecting with attendees post-purchase and post-event.

There’s no better way for your audience to feel the buzz surrounding your event than video. Event organizers might lag behind other industries when it comes to video marketing, but that doesn’t mean it needs to remain the case. Use these marketing tips to take the mystery out of video—and drive sales.

The post Event Marketers Are Ignoring the Power of Video—Here’s How to Catch Up appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.



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Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Your Choice Isn’t College or Oblivion, Says Mike Rowe

5G is Designed So That Industries Can Use Cellar at Massive Scale, Says Qualcomm CEO

How SEO Can Drive Your Marketing Initiatives

Today’s modern marketing department encompasses a variety of roles that blend expertise in both traditional and digital mediums. Hiring for SEO related roles, in particular, has increased by over 40% in the last year.

Companies are injecting more dollars than ever into organic search and content marketing. This strategic shift calls on SEO and marketing teams to move in concert in order to achieve mutual campaign KPIs. Crossing the collaborative divide requires an equally mindful transition towards consistent communication, project management processes, and teambuilding.

Issues with integration

Making two cross-discipline teams work cohesively can be a challenge. About 75% of cross-functional teams fail. In order to mitigate the risk of a poorly-executed campaign, it’s vital to integrate the day-to-day functions of both marketing and SEO teams. To do that, it helps to take a look at some of the common barriers to success.

  • Lack of communication, specifically pertaining to goals
  • No clear method for measuring ROI
  • Siloed mentality or lack of flexibility
  • Gaps in technology adoption

It’s incredibly difficult to strive towards a goal that isn’t clearly defined. Expecting teams with different skill sets to work within ill-defined project parameters is even harder. Scope creep becomes a real issue, alongside a general lack of confidence in project deliverables and team cooperation.

Measuring the impact of a product can also be adversely affected by a lack of clarity. If a project doesn’t have a clear, standardized system for measuring ROI, it becomes difficult for each team to understand the impact of their work and fairly attribute responsibility. This is difficult in any cross-functional scenario, but in the marketing world, where ROI has been historically difficult to measure, it can prove disastrous.

Too often, separate teams become siloed, isolated from the larger department by their specialized skill set. Breaking down creative silos means that valuable information is shared more freely across teams, and the resulting output is more dynamic, which is an extraordinarily valuable thing in the world of marketing. Adapting to current trends in SEO and marketing, as well as being able to execute on them within a joint strategy means being receptive to change.

One barrier to entry for cross-discipline collaboration is a technology adoption gap. Although MarTech software applications accounted for nearly 30% of a CMO’s budget in 2018, certain aspects of technical SEO might be harder to conceptualize and fit under a unified marketing umbrella. Implementing standardized technology tools aimed at promoting collaboration and data analysis is a cornerstone of modern marketing strategy.

Impact on revenue

Successful inter-departmental collaboration can be tied to revenue and positive brand impact. Over 90% of Google traffic is observed on the first page, meaning if you are ranking on the second, third, or tenth page, your marketing efforts are unlikely to be seen.

Social media marketing and content strategy have long been the territory of traditional marketers. Hybridized digital marketers and SEO strategists can help drive marketing objectives centered around the most compelling and technical aspects, bringing to the table a unique understanding of how organic search helps drive brand visibility.

Cross-functional communication provides more visibility into emerging trends, ROI modeling, and organizational needs that can inform marketing spends and strategic focus. Nurturing a basic understanding of the relationship between a brand and its customers also helps marketers and SEO experts alike create smarter strategies and drive more profitable results.

Best practices for fostering collaboration

Fortunately, creating a culture of collaboration doesn’t have to be such a heavy lift. SEO strategists and marketers have similar core competencies. Given the right tools and processes, SEO efforts can help drive marketing objectives and vice versa:

  • Collaboration tools
  • Workflow processes
  • Education and employee engagement

Collaborative tools and software platforms are hitting the market with increasing regularity. Implementing these tools can positively impact the way SEO and marketing teams work together as well as conduct day-to-day job functions. From project management platforms like Asana or Basecamp, to collaborative meeting tools like Slack and Google Hangouts, using a standardized set of tools helps empower organizations with distinct departments and enables remote workers to create compelling campaigns in real-time. This also helps teams establish workflow processes that break large-scale projects down into smaller tasks, allowing them to keep a close eye on potential bottlenecks at all stages of the project management life cycle.

Breaking down organizational silos can do a lot towards creating a shared sense of expertise and a shared vocabulary. Defining project objectives and metrics to track against helps improve the collaboration between SEO and marketing teams since all stakeholders will understand how their efforts and area of expertise play into a shared outcome. Not every marketing objective will be SEO focused, but it’s still important to get stakeholders in the room to talk about keyword targets and opportunities, as well as conduct training sessions.

Keeping employees engaged is one of the best ways to keep collaboration productive and consistent. Scheduling regular standing meetings to go over progress towards objectives, and providing avenues for professional development, certification, and mentoring help cement team building efforts that drive success.

SEO strategy for results

Marketing teams need to be thinking about SEO, and SEO teams need to be thinking about marketing. With more companies throwing their weight behind organic search and adjacent forms of marketing, both teams will be working towards common KPIs. The marketing strategies of the future incorporate a more holistic approach to brand strategy, and companies that are able to foster cross-functional collaboration are setting themselves up to be more able to respond to the changing market.

The post How SEO Can Drive Your Marketing Initiatives appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.



from
https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/how-seo-can-drive-your-marketing-initiatives.html

The Secret to Subscription Business Models is to Think About Your Customers, Says Zuora CEO

Monday, April 15, 2019

Don’t Call It a Comeback: Drip Campaigns Have Been Here for Years

I know what you’re thinking: Drip campaigns? They’re about as relevant as Michael Bolton.

But here’s the thing about Michael Bolton: He’s always relevant!

Truth is, the concepts behind drip campaigns—sending communications to customers and prospects on a regular basis—remain as relevant today as ever. The difference is that marketing automation has made this process much more sophisticated.

Now, instead of scheduling the same series of emails to go to the same people on the same day each week, you can send your audience valuable personalized communications based on actions they took, content they engaged with, or segments they fit.

So, while the idea of traditional drip marketing may sound out of date, there are still plenty of key areas where it can come in handy.

Who should be using them? And when?

Great questions!

Email drip campaigns are perfect for new companies with few prospects or businesses with small marketing departments. They’re also ideal for marketers just starting out their careers.

That’s because they’re generally cost-effective and easy to set up and run. They focus on what’s happening in the moment, so there’s limited long-term planning involved. And not many people are required to execute them.

Essentially, all you need to do is create communications, determine a cadence, and send out your messages. This gives you an opportunity to regularly connect with prospects and educate them enough to make a purchase.

Drip marketing can be particularly effective when you’re:

  • Reengaging a cold sales lead: Did a once-promising prospect suddenly abandon you at the one-yard line? Using a series of drip emails, you can educate them on how your product can help solve their problems, reinforce their desire to buy, and nudge them toward the end zone.
  • Providing thought leadership: Not quite sure what your prospects are interested in or where they are in the buying cycle? Staying in touch by providing always-on thought leadership content through an email drip campaign can help you get answers. Plus, it can make sure your brand stays top of mind for your prospects.
  • Delivering customer newsletters: Looking for more cross-sell and upsell opportunities? Drip emails—in the form of customer newsletters—can do the trick. By delivering fresh insights on an ongoing basis, you can highlight customer pain points and introduce readers to new products that can help them overcome their issues.

If nothing else, drip marketing offers your business a great way to regularly remind people why they connected with your brand in the first place.

What drip campaigns are all about

Regardless of how you use them, the most important thing to remember is that drip campaigns are all about building relationships and nurturing leads. To do that, your communications must provide constant value.

Your audience should trust that you’re going to deliver what you promised. Your messages should be relevant to your readers’ needs. The experiences you deliver should be consistent across multiple channels. And your campaigns should be continually tested and optimized so they pack the most punch.

Fail to do all of that and you’ll have to deal with “Unsubscribe” getting the most clicks in your emails.

Download What Is Lead Nurturing? to learn more.

The post Don’t Call It a Comeback: Drip Campaigns Have Been Here for Years appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.



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Sunday, April 14, 2019

FCC Chairman to Robocallers: This Is Not Going To Stand!

We Want America To Be the Leader in 5G, Says FCC Chairman

Disney CEO: What Netflix Has Done Has Actually Been Good For Us

The Marketplace Has Never Been This Dynamic, Says Disney CEO

Machine Learning Should Be Used to Deliver Great Brand Experiences, Says PagerDuty CEO

How To Track Your Customer Journeys in Real-Time to Empower Your Sales Team

The four pillars of measuring marketing ROI are key to improving sales says Jonathan Rowe, Chief Marketing Officer at nCino. “It’s really understanding your costs specific to the activities you are doing in marketing, tying those activities to your sales opportunities, and then measuring results.”

Rowe says that taking in data on sales prospects and making it available to salespeople can drive results: “When you are bringing all of the data into one real-time place, then you can start empowering salespeople to use the data. You can track your customer journeys in real-time.”

Jonathan Rowe, Chief Marketing Officer at nCino, discusses how to use data to track and improve marketing ROI in an interview with James Carbary, the founder of Sweet Fish Media on the B2B Growth Podcast:

The Four Pillars of Measuring Marketing ROI

Knowing Your Costs

There are four variables that we use to measure ROI that have proven very successful for us. It starts with your costs. Whether it’s headcount costs where you are investing in people, whether it’s the cost of investing in PR, whether you are doing webinars or podcasts, whether you are advertising, etc., it’s really making sure that you have a good understanding of here’s where I’m actually spending my money and how much. So it starts with your costs.

Identifying Marketing Activities

The next step from there is here are all the different activities that we are spending money on. It’s advertising, attending conferences, or doing podcasts. Here are the activities. You have your costs and you have your activities.

Connecting Activities to Sales Opportunities

Then the next big step is connecting those activities to actual sales opportunities. As a B2B marketing organization at nCino, we are selling and marketing to banks. Whenever we initiate a conversation with a financial institution it often takes us 9-12 months from that initial interaction to hopefully when they become a nCino customer.

Over that 12 months, there are hopefully going to be a lot of different marketing activities where that bank and different individuals at the bank interact with nCino. We want to be able to capture that information. So we take the activities that we are doing and we actually connect them to a specific sales opportunity at the financial institution and the individual at the financial institution.

ROI: Measuring Results

The fourth pillar is the results, where we actually turn that prospect into a nCino customer. Then we can say that marketing played this role. At the end of the day, we are in a business where it’s more than marketing. We have sales groups and others involved.

When we sign a financial institution to become a nCino customer I’m always very proud to say here are all the different marketing activities (that led to the sale). Whether it’s white papers and thought leadership or press releases or attending a conference in a booth, how all those activities played an influential role.

It’s really understanding your costs specific to the activities you are doing in marketing, tying those activities to your sales opportunities, and then measuring results.

You Have to Be Committed to Data Analytics

One, you have to really be committed to data analytics. You want to have that marketing driven organization knowing it’s going to take time and costs to get there. Then two, you want to make smart decisions around the technology you use because connecting all of the dots around your data is probably the most important thing. I want to be able to go onto two or three systems which are what we have at nCino and be able to look and see all that data together.

I can see, for example, that Mary who works at a financial institution that we are talking to was on our website yesterday, that she looked at all of these different pages, that she spent seven or eight minutes on each page, and she actually downloaded one of our whitepapers. Then I find out that we are going to see Mary at a banking conference that we are going to in a few weeks.

With all of that automation, I know that the salesperson will log in and see all of that information on the financial institution and Mary.

Track You Customer Journeys in Real-Time

That sales rep will have literally on their phone before they have that face to face conversation at the conference all of Mary’s interactions. Some things you probably don’t want to tell Mary, which is hey, by the way, we’ve been tracking all of your website activity on the nCino website. But what you can have is a conversation around the fact that she downloaded our artificial intelligence whitepaper around banking and you can talk about that.

When you have fewer systems and you’ve made the commitment and you’ve gotten to the place where you are bringing all of the data into one real-time place, then you can start empowering people to use the data. You can track your customer journeys in real-time.

>> Listen to the complete B2B Growth podcast interview.

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Oracle CEO: Applications Market Changes Significantly As It Moves to Cloud

AI: The Secret To Sustainable Supply Chains?

Stop Making These 5 Deadly SEO Mistakes, Says Neil Patel

3 Ways Marketers Can Avoid a Communication Breakdown With Designers

Not to point any fingers, but how many marketers are guilty of asking designers something along the lines of “Can you just make it prettier?”

For many marketers, working with a designer can be one of the most challenging tasks they face while building a brand. Communicating their wants, needs, and visions can lead marketers into a minefield of misunderstandings.

Despite working toward the same goals, designers and marketers speak different languages. Designers are specialists who have learned to translate concepts visually, but that method of communicating information requires plenty of education and training.

Marketers are no less specialized than designers, and increased digitalization has led us to use more technical jargon—marketers love their buzzwords—and complex processes. Most words we use to communicate meaning just don’t add up: The word “flat,” for instance, has a completely different meaning to designers than it does to marketers—and most other folks, for that matter.

On top of the inherent differences to each role, the way people communicate meaning and value changes constantly. The speed of modern communication has altered our expectations of turnaround times, and the introduction of 5G is about to change the speed of communication yet again.

When frustrations and miscommunications arise, this tension leads to diluted messaging and diminished relationships with their target audiences. If marketers and designers commit to speaking a common language, their relationship and reliance on each other will lead to superior marketing assets: Good design results in world-class branding, after all.

Bolster Your Brand by Learning to Speak ‘Designer’

Don’t let the fear of lousy communication stand in the way of an awesome partnership with your design team.

Here are three ways you can keep projects running smoothly:

1. Get together before the project begins

Designers aren’t mind readers. They cannot pluck an idea from your brain and turn it into something marvelous without plenty of direction, clear expectations, and guidance along the way.

At the start of the relationship—or any new project—set up a meeting to discuss your vision. Be clear and specific about your goals, and admit what you don’t know or still have to find out. Ask the designer what he or she needs from you.

Use this meeting to also forecast the timing of the project. According to our in-house data, basing timelines on previous projects causes teams to underestimate how long a project will take 67% of the time. To avoid this trap, outline any expectations about turnaround times and revisions before building a timeline together. When possible, allow designers to take the lead on project timelines or stages.

Give your designer everything he or she might need to understand your brand and target audience. Explain the demographics you’re trying to reach, how your audience interacts with your brand, and what promises or values you want to communicate.

That might seem like a lot of information, but it will empower your designer to make intuitive choices without micromanagement. Without clear expectations, it’s easy for a designer to follow a tangent that made sense in the drafting stages but doesn’t necessarily align with your end goal.

2. Commit to overcommunicating

When you’re establishing a new relationship or project with a designer, err on the side of overcommunicating. Ask plenty of questions, and don’t assume anything. Get clarification about the designer’s thought process, ideas, and—especially—suggestions.

Check in regularly to see whether the designer has everything he or she needs. Explore different methods of communicating to find an approach that works for both of you. Chat platforms like Slack are great for quick, on-the-go check-ins, but nothing beats a face-to-face meeting or video call for sorting out problems and expectations or stirring up excitement for ideas.

It’s equally important to provide written documentation of all expectations, budgets, timelines, and directions. Don’t let creative briefs linger in a folder on your desktop; get them to your designer right away. You can set your projects up for success by treating this early step as a collaborative and informational process.

Once you’ve established your preferred mediums and cadence of communication, you can settle into a more relaxed rhythm with the knowledge that everyone’s on the same page.

3. Give constructive feedback that’s design-specific

Clear and constructive feedback is essential to a productive relationship with a designer. Saying only “I love this” or “I don’t like that” doesn’t cut it, and vague comments such as “Make it cleaner” won’t help designers decide what to do next. High-quality feedback builds on good ideas and explains why “bad” ideas won’t work.

A designer’s job is to solve and create, and your goal is to present a challenge with a problem to overcome. Don’t impose solutions—ask designers for input and ideas. If discussions start to go in circles, steer the conversation back to your pain point. Try to explain precisely what bothers you about any problematic elements, but give your designer the freedom to own the work they are doing.

Trust your designers and embolden them to offer their own evaluations without having to fear that you’ll ignore them or take offense. Create this safe space in your meetings by introducing feedback from the beginning.

Designers might speak in colors and shapes rather than metrics and data, but you can work together to forge a shared language. Start this relationship off strong by bridging the gap and finding ways to communicate, and the results will speak for themselves.

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Your Guide to Relationship Selling

The Power of Relationships

Your product’s features and benefits matter. Often, however, they are not enough on their own to win new business. That’s because most markets are crowded with competitors that offer similar products, services, or solutions.

So how do you compete in saturated markets with the competition nipping at your heels?

It’s all about relationships—good old-fashioned human interactions that build trust. In fact, LinkedIn’s State of Sales 2017 US Report notes that trust in a salesperson is the number one factor in a purchase decision. These sales relationships put the customer first, focusing on creating value for the buyer over the long term that will build brand loyalty.

The fact that companies have started to recognize the importance of relationships is evident by the increasing popularity of account-based sales development (ABSD) and account-based marketing (ABM), which 87% of B2B marketers are implementing.

These account-based strategies let the customer drive the marketing and sales approach. Marketers create content that’s customized to an account’s information needs, helping them to make the purchase that’s right for them. Meanwhile, salespeople build relationships with decision makers and buying influencers across an organization. Sales and marketing work in tandem before the sale and after it, continuing to develop and strengthen that relationship.

How to Build Sales Relationships and Sell More Without Selling

1. Replace Games with Value

When Dale Carnegie said, “The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want,” he honed in on the central tenet of relationship selling.

You have to deliver value, not just today or tomorrow but in the long term.

That means there’s no need for a strong sales pitch that dazzles prospects with lots of bells and whistles they may or may not need. Selling is about finding out what’s important to customers and delivering it. By showing value, a company builds trust.

2. Be Honest and Authentic

There is something empowering about focusing on the value you can provide. Traditional selling, which focuses on the short term, often involves game playing. Salespeople sometimes use pressure tactics to pave the way to a sale. Perhaps they talk about scarcity, saying supplies of a product are about to run out or a special deal is over in a couple of days.

On the other hand, relationship selling is honest. Salespeople are free to be authentic. Correction: They must be authentic. That’s good news because it’s easier for reps to be themselves than to try to be someone else.

3. Listen More than You Talk

If a rep is introverted, there’s no need for them to attempt to turn themselves into the stereotypical garrulous salesperson. In fact, it’s likely the introverted rep is a better listener than his extroverted colleague, and that’s an essential skill in building relationships and fostering a consultative sale.

A good listener makes the customer feel important (who doesn’t want to be listened to?) and is likely to ask the right questions. Listeners have a greater knack for finding out whether or not your company’s solution is a good fit for the prospect. That’s important because in relationship selling, you’re not after every sale. You only want the ones that lead to satisfied customers.

4. Communicate in a Human Way

While relationships can start with electronic communication, such as emails and interactions via social media platforms, they need to be more personal and more human. That means phone calls or face-to-face meetings. There’s just something about hearing someone else’s voice, having them listen to you and enjoying a two-way exchange. In fact, it’s difficult to understand an individual’s true needs without such a conversation.

During these dialogues, a salesperson hears the buyer’s words and their intonation. Thus, they gain a deeper understanding of an individual’s emotions and greater empathy for the problems they’re trying to solve.

That’s important because how can you give someone what they want if you don’t know what it is? Once a salesperson understands the customer’s needs, they can offer value by helping to solve the problem.

5. Treat Prospects’ and Customers’ Time with Respect

There’s no need to chase customers, calling them repeatedly without an appointment. Instead, at the end of each exchange, discuss next steps and schedule a follow-up interaction. When the rep shows they value their own time as well as the customer’s time, they are more likely to emerge as a trusted consultant. When they do, prospects are happy to block time on their calendars for conversations or product demonstrations.

If you focus on building relationships and value for customers, sales are likely to come your way more easily. Be honest and authentic in your approach, listen to customer needs, go beyond electronic communications to conversations, and always respect your customers’ time.

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The 3 Essentials of a Successful Qualified Leads Program

In a way, sales reps are like nurses or doctors. They take people’s temperatures to determine how they’re feeling. A “hot” prospect is ready to buy. A “cold” prospect is merely browsing inventory.

Before the internet, this heat check was usually performed in person. Sales reps would get a good sense of how interested someone was in their company’s products or services by spending some time with them.

Qualified leads would ultimately receive more attention—the sales rep might play 18 holes with them to help close the deal. For people looking to buy later, an occasional phone call to nurture the relationship would suffice.

But with the way modern customers conduct online research prior to purchasing, the human interaction aspect of qualifying leads has all but disappeared.

Many companies today have turned to innovative marketing automation software to analyze a prospect’s digital engagement behavior and determine whether they’re qualified enough to move on to the next step in the sales cycle.

But successfully qualifying leads for sales means having three key fundamentals in place:

1. A solid definition of “lead”

First things first. What’s a lead? At Marketo, we define a lead as any “qualified prospect that is starting to exhibit buying behavior.” That could mean when somebody begins following a social media account, subscribes to an email newsletter, or browses a product page on a website.

Of course, every business should have its own definition for what a lead is. Why? Because differentiating a lead from a non-lead will help you determine who’s worth nurturing and who’s not.

If you haven’t yet defined what a lead is for your organization, here’s how to get started:

Schedule a sit-down between sales and marketing. Talk about what your target market looks like, who’s in your database already, and what kind of buyers are currently closing deals. You’ll also want to discuss things like when to start lead nurturing and what makes a bad lead.

Marketing operations usually has access to the tools, systems, and data that tell you everything you need to know.

Once you’ve developed a solid definition, write it down. You’ll what to share what you’ve come up with so everyone’s on the same page.

And don’t forget to meet regularly. Your definition of a lead will change as your business grows or your priorities shift.

2. An effective lead scoring system

With a lead scoring system, you can assign values to prospects based on actions they take, behaviors they exhibit, and more. This will help you rank leads to determine which prospects are ripe for nurturing and which are ready to engage with your sales team.

There are four attributes you must identify through your lead scoring system:

  • Lead fit: Collecting information around your prospects’ demographics (title, role, location), firmographics (industry, company size, name of company) and BANT (budget, authority, need, time) will give you an idea of whether they fit your ideal buyer profile. You can capture a lot of demographic and firmographic information through a registration page form. Gathering BANT data may require getting to know your prospects a little bit better—perhaps through progressive profiling.
  • Lead interest: Studying your prospects’ online body language by analyzing how they engage with your brand will give you insight into how interested they are in your product or service. The more interest they show, the more likely they are to buy—and the more heavily you should shower them with attention and valuable content. 
  • Lead behavior: Certain prospect behavior shines a light on where they are in the customer journey. Visiting a website or attending a webinar are the signs of an early-stage prospect. Checking out a pricing page or watching a solution demo reveal buyer intent. You can take advantage of this information by offering early-stage prospects more educational content and passing off leads with high buyer intent to sales. 
  • Buying stage/timing: Knowing when your lead intends to buy is extremely important. If a prospect is just beginning to research a product, it’s not the time to put the hard sell on them. Instead, send valuable information about how the product can help solve their problems. By closely evaluating a prospect’s behavior, you’ll get a firm sense of where they are in the buying journey.

Developing a lead scoring system is a core component of lead management—and no department is better suited to help your company bring this system into fruition than your marketing operations team.

That’s because marketing operations has access to the data required to establish a lead scoring program—so it doesn’t have to rely on guesswork.

3. A culture built on testing and optimization

Like most things in marketing, your lead nurturing program shouldn’t be a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. You’ll want to regularly test what’s working and what’s not so you can optimize your processes.

But what exactly should you be testing? In a word: Everything.

The goal of your lead nurturing program is to provide satisfying customer experiences that align with your audiences’ preferences and ultimately drive sales.

So, scrutinize every method you use to engage with your prospects. Measure how people respond to your social media posts, the offers on your websites, and the material in your videos.

Email nurture streams, in particular, provide a plethora of opportunities to test and optimize. You can:

  • Assess how different variations of a subject line impact open rates
  • See if click-through rates improve by swapping your content type
  • Evaluate whether readers respond better to short or long emails
  • Change the layout to learn what kind of design resonates most with readers
  • Modify send frequency to get a better idea of how often audiences want to be contacted

By creating a culture of testing and optimization, sales and marketing can collaborate to turn qualified leads into surefire customers.

A new frontier of qualifying leads emerges with AI

The three fundamentals above will go a long way toward helping you successfully qualify leads for sales. But like we’ve seen before with the emergence of the internet, there’s always something new around the corner ready to shake up the status quo.

Today, that’s AI.

Sales reps currently spend a lot of time and attention just determining if a prospect is a qualified lead. Sometimes, it’s all for naught, as a months-long engagement could develop into nothing.

Hiring more sales reps isn’t the answer. But leaning on innovative conversational AI and machine learning could be.

Instead of an employee interacting with a prospect, an AI-driven bot could communicate with them. When a person visits a website, the bot can converse with them, help them, and, most importantly, collect the valuable insight needed to decide if they’re a qualified lead.

This allows human sales reps to limit their focus to building relationships with prospects who are actually worth their time.

A chance to transform lead qualification

With a few key principles and an eye on the future, you can do wonders for your lead qualification program. And it won’t be long until your entire organization feels the effects—experiencing more closed deals and higher revenue.

Download The Definitive Guide to Sales Lead Qualification and Sales Development to learn more.

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We Want America To Be the Leader in 5G, Says FCC Chairman

Disney CEO: What Netflix Has Done Has Actually Been Good For Us

The Marketplace Has Never Been This Dynamic, Says Disney CEO

3 Ways Marketers Can Avoid a Communication Breakdown With Designers

Not to point any fingers, but how many marketers are guilty of asking designers something along the lines of “Can you just make it prettier?”

For many marketers, working with a designer can be one of the most challenging tasks they face while building a brand. Communicating their wants, needs, and visions can lead marketers into a minefield of misunderstandings.

Despite working toward the same goals, designers and marketers speak different languages. Designers are specialists who have learned to translate concepts visually, but that method of communicating information requires plenty of education and training.

Marketers are no less specialized than designers, and increased digitalization has led us to use more technical jargon—marketers love their buzzwords—and complex processes. Most words we use to communicate meaning just don’t add up: The word “flat,” for instance, has a completely different meaning to designers than it does to marketers—and most other folks, for that matter.

On top of the inherent differences to each role, the way people communicate meaning and value changes constantly. The speed of modern communication has altered our expectations of turnaround times, and the introduction of 5G is about to change the speed of communication yet again.

When frustrations and miscommunications arise, this tension leads to diluted messaging and diminished relationships with their target audiences. If marketers and designers commit to speaking a common language, their relationship and reliance on each other will lead to superior marketing assets: Good design results in world-class branding, after all.

Bolster Your Brand by Learning to Speak ‘Designer’

Don’t let the fear of lousy communication stand in the way of an awesome partnership with your design team.

Here are three ways you can keep projects running smoothly:

1. Get together before the project begins

Designers aren’t mind readers. They cannot pluck an idea from your brain and turn it into something marvelous without plenty of direction, clear expectations, and guidance along the way.

At the start of the relationship—or any new project—set up a meeting to discuss your vision. Be clear and specific about your goals, and admit what you don’t know or still have to find out. Ask the designer what he or she needs from you.

Use this meeting to also forecast the timing of the project. According to our in-house data, basing timelines on previous projects causes teams to underestimate how long a project will take 67% of the time. To avoid this trap, outline any expectations about turnaround times and revisions before building a timeline together. When possible, allow designers to take the lead on project timelines or stages.

Give your designer everything he or she might need to understand your brand and target audience. Explain the demographics you’re trying to reach, how your audience interacts with your brand, and what promises or values you want to communicate.

That might seem like a lot of information, but it will empower your designer to make intuitive choices without micromanagement. Without clear expectations, it’s easy for a designer to follow a tangent that made sense in the drafting stages but doesn’t necessarily align with your end goal.

2. Commit to overcommunicating

When you’re establishing a new relationship or project with a designer, err on the side of overcommunicating. Ask plenty of questions, and don’t assume anything. Get clarification about the designer’s thought process, ideas, and—especially—suggestions.

Check in regularly to see whether the designer has everything he or she needs. Explore different methods of communicating to find an approach that works for both of you. Chat platforms like Slack are great for quick, on-the-go check-ins, but nothing beats a face-to-face meeting or video call for sorting out problems and expectations or stirring up excitement for ideas.

It’s equally important to provide written documentation of all expectations, budgets, timelines, and directions. Don’t let creative briefs linger in a folder on your desktop; get them to your designer right away. You can set your projects up for success by treating this early step as a collaborative and informational process.

Once you’ve established your preferred mediums and cadence of communication, you can settle into a more relaxed rhythm with the knowledge that everyone’s on the same page.

3. Give constructive feedback that’s design-specific

Clear and constructive feedback is essential to a productive relationship with a designer. Saying only “I love this” or “I don’t like that” doesn’t cut it, and vague comments such as “Make it cleaner” won’t help designers decide what to do next. High-quality feedback builds on good ideas and explains why “bad” ideas won’t work.

A designer’s job is to solve and create, and your goal is to present a challenge with a problem to overcome. Don’t impose solutions—ask designers for input and ideas. If discussions start to go in circles, steer the conversation back to your pain point. Try to explain precisely what bothers you about any problematic elements, but give your designer the freedom to own the work they are doing.

Trust your designers and embolden them to offer their own evaluations without having to fear that you’ll ignore them or take offense. Create this safe space in your meetings by introducing feedback from the beginning.

Designers might speak in colors and shapes rather than metrics and data, but you can work together to forge a shared language. Start this relationship off strong by bridging the gap and finding ways to communicate, and the results will speak for themselves.

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