Blog - plain talk

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.

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.

Love it or hate it, social media is more than just a way to connect with friends online. While many of us remember when Facebook first began and being part of a community that didn’t include Business Pages or Newsfeed Ads, the world of social media from 15 years ago is very different from what it is now, which is a world where businesses can no longer afford to not maximize their social presence. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll walk you through why social media is more important than ever and what you should do about it.

As 2020—a year unlike any other—finishes up, marketers are faced with a new world of replacing crucial business leads. One of the most impactful methods, trade shows, is still in flux. Many early 2021 shows have been canceled while others are considering postponing or moving to a completely virtual platform, which frankly just isn’t the same. And you need leads now. This is just the right time to utilize those trade show dollars on a few new arrows in the marketing quiver, ones that allow for pinpoint precision to offset the loss of in-person opportunities. In today’s Plain Talk newsletter, we’ll talk about a few cost-effective B2B lead generation tips and ways to repurpose those trade show dollars to keep qualified leads rolling in.

There are the six digital areas you really need to be concentrating on in order to increase your digital authority and drive not just leads for your business but qualified leads that you can close and convert into profits. Each digital key feeds off the others to maximize results, so the best strategy is to implement each of these as a part of a comprehensive digital plan to acquire new customers and maximize your revenue potential. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll kick off our lead gen series and dig into the six keys to building your ideal digital lead generation strategy.

Whether your focus is on B2B marketing or B2C, there are few topics more relevant today than generating qualified leads to move your sales forward. There are a great number of ways to do this (in combination for best results), but in today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll discuss the anchor tactic for “pay-per-click” advertising: paid search marketing. We’ll cover six paid search best practices to get the most ROI from your efforts.

In 2020, the home bar cart has taken on special significance because shrinking out-of-home social opportunities have created a boost in at-home consumption. This on-premise apocalypse we talked about in an earlier article means that brands need to find new and significant opportunities to drive off-premise volume. But the bar cart isn’t just ANY off-premise sale. It’s a place of honor in consumer homes but for the right brands, a lucrative one. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll talk about a few ways you can earn a coveted place on the millennial bar cart with the right beverage packaging design.

Today, dropping technology costs and faster production methods mean that video and CGI production is no longer reserved just for Super Bowl ads for many—even small businesses. Video consumption in the U.S. has skyrocketed thanks to COVID-19, so cheaper production costs may be worth considering. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll talk about why you may want to consider how CGI advertising fits into your digital marketing strategy and whether it’s a viable option for your e-commerce, B2C, or B2B content production needs.