The healthcare industry has been slower to accept and embrace digital in the past, and it’s not completely their fault. There are federal privacy regulations, and other challenges have made traditional advertising more appealing. In addition to traditional marketing, healthcare providers also made good use of in-office marketing tactics. But with COVID-19 and the loss of some point-of-service marketing tactics, digital spending grew 14% in 2020 for the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, and is expected to grow another 18% in 2021. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll look at how and why you should look to digital marketing strategies for healthcare to bolster your marketing efforts.

You know that a healthy flow of great content is an essential way to inform and stay in touch with existing healthcare patients, and it’s also a way to help bring in new ones. However, you also know that the best content often comes from our healthcare professionals, physicians and experts who have never been more time starved. So how do you get the healthcare content you need while making sure you don’t risk interrupting care? In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll provide you with some tools to help strike the right balance and explain why now is the time to improve your offering.

When it comes to overused phrases, “the possibilities are endless” ranks pretty high. However, for anyone talking about digital engagement for financial services the phrase isn’t hyperbole. If you’re aiming to deliver an end-to-end digital experience for your customers, then you know that it means not only thinking of everything, but also continuously analyzing and optimizing those things as well. Which is why a great end-to-end digital engagement strategy includes basically everything except for one thing: an end. In this edition of our Compound Interest series, we’ll dig into managing that seemingly endless cycle.

AI is now the cornerstone of big businesses like Amazon, Google, Apple and IBM. It continually reforms what is possible for retail, logistics and manufacturing. But, did you ever stop to think how AI could be used for a mom-and-pop business or small company? You may not have, but that hasn’t stopped AI from thinking about your business! In this edition of our Plain Talk newsletter, we’ll dig into AI implementation for small businesses. Learn how small (and even mid-size) businesses can benefit from AI and machine learning. We’ll explain how to take advantage of the AI that’s already embedded in your business (whether you like it or not).

Is it just me or has everyone been getting an influx of text messages lately? And no, not from your mom or BFF—from politicians, brands and advertisers. Obviously COVID-19 has brought a ton of changes, but maybe it’s also renewed or increased interest in one-to-one communications and new (old) ways to connect with consumers. In today’s Plain Talk, we’ll dig into the resurgence of SMS campaigns and whether they might work in your marketing mix.

The average person receives 126 work emails a day. In a world with over four billion email users, you might think that interest in email has peaked. However, surprisingly the number of email users continues to steadily grow about 3% each year, and the number of daily emails sent grows 4% yearly. Despite the growth of Facebook and other social media, instant messaging apps, SMS, and targeted media technologies, email use and email marketing continue to grow. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll discuss why the elements of email marketing may be more important than ever and how to do it well.

In 2021, it’s safe to say that a big chunk of our days are spent online, whether thumbing through social media, shopping, researching a project or big purchase, or gathering information about current events. Of those daily website visits, how many of them stand out to you as being really great personal experiences? In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll walk through some of the business-critical reasons you should focus on your website CX. We’ll explore ways you can deliver a personable website experience to your customers.

If you are working at home with your children or your dog right now, you don’t need me to remind you that COVID-19 has changed the way we live and work. In the B2B industries, the changes have been tougher than just working from home. We’ve seen critical tradeshows, events, and travel mostly canceled. Reductions in budgets and staff have led to an increased reliance on account-based marketing (ABM). In fact, according to Demandbase, budgets dedicated to ABM increased by 40% in 2020. But it’s a new year, right? So, what do we see happening with ABM best practices in the first half of 2021, and what does that mean for you and your business? In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll run down the ABCs of ABM and how you can follow best practices for your business.

For years, we’ve used digital advertising as an efficient and effective means of reaching exactly who we want to reach, with the right message, at the right time. Ad tech and publishers have been competing to offer better targeting, more capabilities, and better tracking, and each ad tech call offers something new—some new proprietary technology to make advertising better, stronger, and faster. Then came the year of bad news (COVID-19, murder hornets, flying sharks), and it’s all falling apart. Consumer and legislative pressures driving greater privacy requirements in advertising threaten to erase the media targeting and ad tech advancements we’ve become accustomed to incorporating into our plans. As we face a future without using cookies, we have to ask ourselves, “What now?” In today’s edition of our Plain Talk series, we’ll delve into what the future of digital advertising without cookies will entail. We’ll also explore why it’s not as scary as you might think.

SERP is the sum total of all things Google: organic search results, paid ads, map packs, Google Shopping carousels, and tons of other content types and nuances. SERP can either be good to your brand or be a customer’s stepping stone to one of your fiercer competitors. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll discuss some of the ways you can tame the three parts of a SERP to your brand’s advantage.