So why don’t we? I’m sure there are many opinions on the subject… feel free to share yours in the comments on this post or our LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter pages. But for me… I think the answer is simple. Fear. Fear Kills Great Ideas Like it or not, there are people in the world …
Should we be on [insert name of new or hot social network here] or [established social media platform]? This is easily the most common question our digital strategy clients pose to us. And interestingly of late, the question tends to focus on two of the biggest social media platforms – Facebook and Instagram – often …
How a DMO can Sell Greatly by programming or influencing a first time visitor’s destination experience to maximize the value for both the visitor and the destination marketing organization.
...As I embark on yet another Fat Tuesday, I can’t help but flashback a decade (yes, it’s been 10 years since I first invited you to experience Mardi Gras via my Tweetstream) and marvel at the power of Social Media to build brand perception. Back then, my little experiment was novel (no one had ever …
Over the last 10 years, content marketing has emerged as a powerful driver for effective social selling and inbound sales lead generation programs. And while largely heralded as a way to drive inbound leads there is another, even more powerful reason that ad and PR agencies should develop a consistent content marketing program. Let’s talk about …
In November 2016, CNN plunked down a reported 20 millions dollars to purchase Beme, the video-sharing app started by YouTube star Casey Neistat. CNN hoped to fashion it into an independently operated daily online news program that would appeal to today’s digital centric consumer. By January 2018, Neistat was out and the effort became a glaring …
Companies today live and die by the KPI (Key Performance Indicator) metric of their choosing. They become slaves to the data based sales & marketing approach. And there is nothing wrong with that until there is, especially with consumer engagement KPI’s. Because what at first, seems to be a positive, could actually hide a huge …
I read Gary’s missive this week and to be fair, I love the tactic he suggests but hate everything else about his recommendation because if you blindly follow it, you’ll fail. Let me explain. Conversations Become Customers I couldn’t agree more with Gary’s recommendation to create proximity with your sales prospects using events as a tool …
Everyone loves digital advertising for its tracking capability vs traditional advertising. It’s easier to prove digital marketing ROI vs traditional advertising because digital makes the invisible buyer visible. But is this focus on clicks causing you to miss conversions? Let’s talk about that today. You Can’t Sell To Invisible Buyers In our zeal to prove …
We all want the Google Juice. We’ve been told it’s the silver bullet to inbound marketing success. But we’re wrong. The only way to truly Google Proof your website, and your online marketing efforts, is Propinquity. Today we’ll talk about why propinquity marketing is a better long-term strategy vs the classic Google/Inbound strategy for most …
Last week Skift posted an article, Business of Loyalty: What the Travel Industry Could Learn From Amazon Prime, suggesting travel brands could learn a lot from Amazon’s famous Prime Service. Nothing could be further from the truth… here’s why. Amazon Prime Isn’t a Loyalty Program According to Webster’s Dictionary, loyalty is an act of “faith” …
According to just released data from Pew…. YES… Millennials are far more likely than their elder brethren to be searching for God via the Internet. In fact, they’re almost 5 TIMES more likely to seek the Almighty on the web then Baby Boomers and this might be the most important marketing stat you’ll read all …
You can’t sell if you can’t persuade. We all know that. But what you probably haven’t figured out yet is that digital content is the most persuasive tool in your sales & marketing toolbox and you’re not using it correctly. In my 2014 Content Marketing World talk — Using Content as Your New Sales Force — I talked about …
Travel planning is entirely different today than say even 10 years ago. Today’s travelers are invisible prospects to you and your marketing team, often until after they’ve made their vacation destination selection. Combine that with a consumer whose needs are more complex, stresses more numerous and media choices that have literally exploded over the last …
You can’t turn around in marketing today without hearing someone or some company talking about Influencer Marketing. It seems every company wants to figure out how to leverage an influencer marketing strategy to grow their brand and sales. But from what I’ve seen, more are doing it wrong than right and new research suggests new …
What if I told you I could create a 161% change in consumer perception by simply changing the background of a headshot photo? Would you believe me? Would you believe that something so small could cause such a massive improvement in your consumer marketing programs? And not just any perception, a meaningful one — the …
I was reading an interesting statistic this morning that “almost 69% of online shopping carts that contain at least one item are later abandoned, according to the Baymard Institute, an e-commerce consultancy based in Copenhagen which analyzed 31 studies over the past few years. That is up about three percentage points from 2012, says Christian …
On May 1st, Converse Digital turned five — five years of helping clients turn conversations into customers. But as I sit here reflecting on what I’ve learned over the last year, two overriding lessons overshadow everything else. Such universal truths. Such simple rules. Rules that I’ve spoken of before, but yet, it took the events of …
Back in 1950, psychologists Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter, and Kurt Back launched a study to investigate how friendships developed among students at the new Westgate Complex at MIT. They found that the strongest friendships developed between students who lived next to each other on the same floor. Where friendships developed between students who lived on …
Recently the super smart Jeff Rohrs of ExactTarget/Salesforce wrote a great post about the lack of CTA’s (Call to Action) in Super Bowl ads. You can read it here. In it, Jeff makes the argument that Super Bowl advertisers that fail to place a mobile friendly CTA in their ads are guilty of “marketing malpractice” …
Everything you once knew about marketing and sales prospecting is wrong. Or at the very least, social selling is quickly rendering it obsolete. Once upon a time, companies treated information about their product as sacred. After all, information is power. The traditionally held belief was that a company’s marketing efforts should force prospective customers to call and …
Instagram’s new Hyperlapse IOS app is taking the tourism content marketing world by storm. Heck, it’s got everyone’s attention. Almost overnight (after its release) my Facebook feed switched from a never ending stream of ice bucket challenges to Hypersnap videos. But here are three reasons I recommend brands, and tourism destination marketers in particular, steer clear of …
Last week while driving my six year old son to camp, he asked me an interesting question. “Dad, how do you become famous?” I responded that you do something notable and worthy. He then went on to ask me to define worthy. Which I defined is doing something meaningful for the world. Something that made …
While watching Luke Bryan, the headliner closing act on Saturday night, at the 2014 Bayou Country Fest I was struck by two things. First, his pandering techniques (to get the crowd into the show) and second, the number of folks heading for the doors during his encore. This was the headline act, the keynote speaker …
Content marketing is a widely recognized driver for effective, inbound sales lead generation programs. While largely heralded as a way to drive inbound leads there is another, even more powerful reason that ad agencies should develop a consistent content marketing program. The Traditional Benefit of Content Marketing Content drives all digital marketing lead generation programs. …