Blog - plain talk

Online sales are booming! E-commerce is the way! Brick-and-mortar stores are over!

To these paraphrased headlines, I have two words: Amazon Go. Here are another two: Amazon Style. And two more: Amazon Fresh. Yes, the world’s largest e-commerce retailer is actively pursuing a physical retail footprint, and they aren’t only ones. In today’s Plain Talk, we’ll discuss e-commerce vs. retail and why consumers still overwhelmingly prefer the retail experience.

For years, writing articles to help your website rank on Google has been important for generating traffic. For just as long, being found online has sometimes taken a divergent path from providing the most topical content for the user. If you haven’t heard, on August 18th, Google announced their Helpful Content Update. This might prove to be one of Google’s most significant updates to date. It is designed specifically to penalize websites whose content was created to attract clicks rather than deliver consumer-useful content. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll examine the Google Helpful Content Update and law firm websites and explain the potential impact on yours

Many of our articles are about tangible topics, with acronyms like ESG, ABM, or GBP. Marketing, though, is about the mastery of both the objective and the subjective to help you best sell your products or services. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll discuss black and white advertising and seven reasons why your brand might choose to use this creative in our full-color world. We’ll also learn some of the psychological impacts it may have on your consumers.

Good SEO has always provided the best bang for your buck in LeadGen. As SEO becomes increasingly more sophisticated and users demand better and faster answers to their queries, Google has a difficult job uncovering high-quality content and promoting the most relevant results for a user’s intent. This edition of Plain Talk will highlight questions regarding SEO and Google algorithm updates and how the right strategy can minimize impact.

While many workplaces quickly realized how big of an issue burnout had become and enacted measures to address this growing topic of concern—from increased health and wellness activities or incentives to encourage more of a work/life balance—it’s not always an easy fix for all employees. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll specifically examine social media manager burnout and how those tasked with creating and managing content to help your brand stand out may be at risk. We’ll also discuss ways to work with these team members to develop a system where burnout isn’t the norm.

Yes, you have a digital spirit animal. We all do. The question is, how do you know which one you are? More importantly, how can you keep it from messing up your digital marketing efforts? In this edition of Plain Talk, we will define bias in digital marketing by identifying digital spirit animals. We’ll also give you a clear path to building your ideal website.

There’s an invisible battle waging in the background of the internet. The prize? Your attention. Brand websites, social media apps, and search engines are all vying for your attention by applying algorithms that facilitate showing you content based on the probability that you’ll want to see it. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll explore where digital targeting is evolving and how to utilize invited personalization.

Businesses today are investing an increasing amount of effort, strategy and creativity in the content they produce for existing customers and prospects. In this edition of Plain Talk, we will talk about some of the top content marketing strategy tips to consider. We’ll explore how to ensure your content is developed to be discovered by Google and placed prominently on SERPs (search engine results pages). Let’s make sure your hard work is found and appreciated by your target audience.

Have you ever been to a webpage that wasn’t optimized for your phone properly, and the ads blocked the content? How about waiting so long for an ad to disappear that you clicked on the ad, then clicked the back arrow just to see if it would end sooner? Well, you’re not alone; 90% of those surveyed find digital ads annoying. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll look at problems with programmatic advertising and the damage targeting top-of-funnel metrics, like impressions and clicks using broad ad networks, can have on your brand.

In an effort to be more efficient and more effective, today’s advertisers are pushing to get more targeted by eliminating “waste” and driving results. While this pertains to all media, the biggest and most exciting benefit of digital media is you can reach, as the old saying goes, “the right person at the right time with the right message.” It seems simple, right? “The more targeted, the better” seems to be the new motto. But what happens when you take that too far? Or when your campaign doesn’t work, despite being 100% honed in on the “ideal” target audience. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll examine three major targeted marketing strategy mistakes we see and discuss how you can avoid similar pitfalls in your campaigns.