Develop Your Marketing Machine to Plan for Marketing Success Do you ever before really feel like you’re continuously running about, attempting to obtain your advertising products placed with each other and also out the door? Or are you continuously jumping on the newest advertising concept, and also tossing away your time as well as cash …
Develop Your Marketing Machine to Plan for Marketing Success Do you ever before really feel like you’re continuously running about, attempting to obtain your advertising products placed with each other and also out the door? Or are you continuously jumping on the newest advertising concept, and also tossing away your time as well as cash …
Develop Your Marketing Machine to Plan for Marketing Success Do you ever before really feel like you’re continuously running about, attempting to obtain your advertising products placed with each other and also out the door? Or are you continuously jumping on the newest advertising concept, and also tossing away your time as well as cash …
Do terms like “AI” and “machine learning” make you think of robots and science fiction?
These technologies are being used everywhere, and the age of AI is already in full swing.
AI and technology offer a solution to inefficiency. Deloitte has shown that 83 percent of early adopters of AI and cognitive technologies achieved either “moderate” or “substantial” benefits.
AI is somewhat part of augmented intelligence tools’ technology, but how is it used in marketing right now?
What is Augmented Intelligence?
Gartner defines “augmented intelligence” as “a human-centric partnership model of people and artificial intelligence working together to enhance cognitive performance.”
What that means is that augmented intelligence isn’t just about creating super smart machines. It’s about creating technology that can help you and your brain do things better.
Augmented intelligence is sometimes also called intelligence automation (IA).
How is Augmented Intelligence Different From Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Artificial intelligence is all about computers making decisions. But augmented intelligence is about you making better decisions, with the help of a computer.
Let’s dive into some specific examples so we can see how this works:
Artificial Intelligence Examples
Artificial intelligence operates on its own, without help from humans.
That might make you think of autonomous killer robots, but the reality is usually a little less exciting.
Ever used a grammar checker tool? Lots of those use AI to give you more sophisticated grammar recommendations.
Even Google Docs uses an AI grammar checker. Google’s engineers train the model using correct sentences. It’s then able to predict whether sentences are correct or incorrect on its own, without needing to be programmed with every single grammar rule.
Know where else Google uses AI? In its search engine algorithms.
Now that we’ve seen how AI is used, how is augmented intelligence used? How are its applications different from AI?
Augmented intelligence is a pretty general term. You can use it to talk about basically any machine that helps humans enhance their capabilities and make better decisions, even something as simple as a compass or telescope.
But in practice, augmented intelligence is usually used to talk about automated systems that need direction or input from humans to function. Augmented reality tools, like Google Glass, are just one example.
The augmented intelligence tool gives recommendations, and then the human makes the final call. Feedback from humans helps the tool to learn and grow continuously.
Why would you want to use augmented intelligence when you could use “true AI?” Well, augmented intelligence allows us to do more with the technology we currently have, without needing to wait for AI to advance.
It also adds a human element to the decision-making process, which can be helpful for complying with regulation in some industries. Plus, with augmented intelligence, we can take advantage of new technologies while also continuing to use human talent.
But the best thing about augmented intelligence? When humans and machines work together, they can achieve better results than one or the other working alone.
For example, an experiment by a team from a Harvard Medical School hospital at the Camelyon Grand Challenge showed that an algorithm could accurately detect breast cancer 92% of the time, while a human pathologist accurately detected it 96% of the time. When the pathologist worked together with the algorithm, the results were accurate 99% of the time.
Overall, augmented intelligence is just a different philosophy that can help us get the most from AI, without needing really sophisticated capabilities.
How Can Augmented Intelligence Help Your Business?
The truth is, augmented intelligence can do huge things for your company.
There are tons of different ways to use augmented intelligence. There’s probably an IA application out there that can help you streamline and improve every single area of your business.
Here’s an example: Augmented intelligence can help you sell things online.
Think about the last time you thought about buying something online. What were some reasons you might have hesitated before making a purchase?
You might not want to lay out money for certain items before trying them out in person. Furniture, glasses, clothes are examples of products users want to see how they look up close before you buy.
Enter augmented intelligence. With augmented reality (AR) applications, your customers can “try on” things virtually. Even if they’d prefer to shop from home, they can still get a feel for your merchandise.
Want to know how this works in practice? Check out some of the companies using augmented reality to sell furniture (Wayfair), glasses (EyeBuyDirect), and makeup (MAC Cosmetics).
To use the virtual try-on tools, you can upload a photo or open your webcam, and the tool will show you what the product looks like in real life.
But sales isn’t the only area where augmented intelligence can help your business.
Want to make your product safer? Car companies are already using augmented reality to help drivers spot dangers on the road and avoid looking down at their phones.
Want to thrill your customers with a cool new feature? Google did that when they introduced internet searchers to AR animals.
You can improve your customer service with augmented intelligence, too. Chatbots can help answer some more straightforward customer questions, freeing up more time for your human staff. IA can also help support your customer service reps when they need more information to help customers.
Finally, just like with sales, product, and customer service, augmented intelligence tools can take your marketing efforts to the next level.
Here are three crucial reasons why you should use augmented intelligence tools to supercharge your marketing.
If you use augmented intelligence to create an extra cool or innovative product, your marketing will basically be halfway done for you. An awesome customer experience pretty much markets itself. Just look at all the videos people have made about Google’s AR animals:
Check out all these articles people have written about Wayfair’s augmented reality feature for furniture:
If you make something interesting enough, you might end up getting lots of new backlinks and traffic without even trying.
Besides creating new product features, you can also improve your customer experience with augmented intelligence in other ways.
For instance, customers are more likely to be satisfied if they can get their questions answered faster with technology like automated chatbots, as mentioned above.
You can also use augmented intelligence to help personalize the customer experience. An example of this would be user recommendations. You’ve probably seen these on YouTube on the right-hand side:
And on Amazon as suggested product examples:
These websites use algorithms to make recommendations based on the videos you’ve already watched or products you’ve already shown interest in. When you click on a recommendation, you’re sending a signal to the algorithm that the recommendation was relevant.
Recommendations help you offer a better experience by helping your customers find things they might be interested in. They are also a way to convince customers to stay on your website for longer.
Augmented Intelligence Can Reduce Busywork
Another major reason why companies are interested in automation is that it saves time. According to WorkMarket’s 2020 In(Sight) Report, over half of employees think they could save 240 hours every yearthrough automation.
IA can help your marketing department save time in lots of different ways. If you’re currently using data for strategic planning, augmented intelligence tools can help.
You can use these tools to help clean data sets, forecast future trends with predictive modeling, or even keep an eye on competitors, social trends, and customer feedback. This can help you create more effective marketing plans more quickly.
If you decide to use augmented intelligence in your marketing, you won’t be alone. According to a Forrester report, 46% of respondents say that marketing and sales teams are leading AI adoption.
It’s no wonder marketers are excited to adopt this technology. Hubspot found that using AI software cut the time one agency spent on reporting by 97 percent.
Augmented Intelligence Can Help Write Content
Here’s another way that augmented intelligence can help with your marketing: It can help you write better content, faster.
If you’re a marketer, you know that writing quality content takes serious time and effort.
A survey by Orbit Media Studios states that the average blog post takes almost four hours to write. That’s actually a 63% increase over 2014, when the average blog post took just under 2.5 hours.
If you’re wondering why the writing time has gone up so much, it’s because Google’s algorithm updates have started to favor long-form content.
Besides the actual writing, researching, adding photos, and publishing also take up lots of time, not to mention content planning and SEO.
Augmented intelligence can helpfully write text, but it can’t add much research, facts, or emotions to it.
AI’s writing style can be a little different from what we’re used to, so it needs human polishing.
As you can see, AI can write sentences, but you might need to edit or adjust them to fit your content needs.
Even if you don’t want a robot to write your articles, you can still use augmented intelligence tools to help you in your writing. Spelling and grammar checkers, like Grammarly, are a good example of this.
Augmented intelligence can also help you create better content by coming up with more relevant topics for your audience.
To do that, you’ll need to have the best tools, including artificial intelligence.
However, a lot of people are skeptical about AI. In fact, research by PwC shows that 67% of CEOs think AI and automation will have a negative impact on trust in their industry over the next five years.
With augmented intelligence tools, you don’t have to rely on AI alone. Instead, you can use AI’s strengths and human strengths together to get better results.
If you’ve already started using augmented intelligence in your marketing, or if you’re thinking about using it soon, tell us about your experience in the comments.
Using quizzes in your marketing strategy is one of the most underrated marketing moves. Seriously. They are incredibly effective at generation leads, engaging your audience, and much more. But, it isn’t enough for me to just convince you to implement quizzes in your marketing strategy, so I’m going to show you exactly how to create …
Using quizzes in your marketing strategy is one of the most underrated marketing moves.
Seriously.
They are incredibly effective at generation leads, engaging your audience, and much more.
But, it isn’t enough for me to just convince you to implement quizzes in your marketing strategy, so I’m going to show you exactly how to create an effective quiz, how to distribute it, and how to follow it up with marketing automation.
At the end, we’ll cover several brands successfully using quizzes in their marketing strategy so you can walk away with a little more insight.
Part I: Creating Your Quiz
There’s more to a quiz than you might actually think. Did you know that six out of ten people only read a headline? That means we’re going to have to make a pretty good first impression, so let’s talk about the title first.
Title Selection & Quiz Types
The very first step to creating a quiz would be coming up with the title for it. Once you’ve got that down, you’re going to want to figure out what type of quiz you want to make.
Here are a few of the most common quiz titles;
The “Actually” Title: Believe it or not, adding the word “actually” can turn a simple question into a challenge. Compare “How much do you know about the Golden State Warriors” against “How much do you actually know about the Golden State Warriors” and you’ll see what we mean. No one likes to back down from a challenge, right?
“The Which (Blank) Are You?” Title: This one’s a classic. Due to our innate inquisitive nature, sometimes we just have to know which Marvel superhero we are before we die. It’s just one of those things we have to cross off our bucket list.
The “Celebrity Personality” Title: This is your typical personality quiz with the substitution of celebrities to give it that added pizazz. Because of the use of celebrities, they’re more likely to get someone’s attention sheerly through being starstruck.
Choosing The Quiz Type
The quiz titles above will give you a few ideas of quiz types, but here’s a few more to consider:
The Personality Quiz – We like to hear good things about ourselves, so because of the “self-serving bias,” personality quizzes work so well. This type of quiz categorizes people into personalities that compliment them based on their answers. If you’re a brand that focuses on product sales, you could use a personality quiz to place individuals into categories with personalized product recommendations based on the answers they gave.
The Knowledge Test: The knowledge test simply challenges anyone’s knowledge on a given subject. You could ask your audience how much they know about your brand, the products it offers, or any of today’s trending topics.
Crafting Quiz Questions
Now that you’ve got a general idea of what kind of quiz you want to create along with a title to go with it, it’s time to bring it to life by filling it up with questions!
Here are some things to keep in mind when formulating your questions:
Infuse Personality into Your Quiz: Breathe some life into your quiz by injecting your personality into it. Approach your audience as if you were talking to them in person. Make your audience feel comfortable so that they’ll be more likely to opt-in later.
Use Images for Your Questions: There’s nothing wrong with having text-only questions, but don’t be afraid to use images either. Using pictures keeps things interesting and relevant, it also makes your quiz feel more like a trivia game.
Keep It Short: People don’t have the longest attention spans, so keep things simple and sweet. Aim between 6 to 10 questions for your quiz, in general, this will only take your audience about two to three minutes to complete.
Designing A Lead Capture: Do’s and Don’t’s
After coming up with the questions for your quiz, it’s time to create a lead capture form. The purpose of lead capture is to gather contact information so that you can grow an email list.
You can then follow these leads up through marketing automation, which we’ll get into later. For now, here are some helpful do’s and don’t’s you should follow when creating your lead capture:
Do: Incentivize Your Lead Capture Form
Give your audience a reason to provide you with their contact information. Offer incentives like a free eBook or an entry to a free giveaway. Standard incentives include infrequent updates about your brand or a weekly newsletter. Find what works best to encourage your audience to join your mailing list.
Don’t: Ask For Information You Won’t Use
What’s the point in asking your audience for their phone number if you aren’t going to call them? Make sure you only ask for information that your brand will use; the most basic being a first and last name, and an email address.
It won’t always be clear to your audience that after you get their contact information, you’ll be contacting them. It’s a good rule of thumb to let your audience know that you’ll be getting in touch with them soon, so don’t be all hush-hush about your marketing strategy.
Be honest with your audience. Give them a quick heads up about what’s to come, like this:
Creating Shareable Results
Now onto the results! This is the moment your audience has been waiting for. You want to make sure your results are something they’re going to like and share with others, so creating share-worthy results will be your priority.
Here are a couple of pointers that will help you create results worth sharing:
Be Honest and Positive: Positive emotions are more likely to promote sharing, so create results that compliment your audience into sharing what they got. At the same time, be honest with your results. Don’t tell your audience that they’re something they aren’t.
Use Share-Worthy Images: Just like how we used images for your questions, we’re going to want to make sure we use images for your results. This time around, you want to use some pretty interesting pictures; ones that are worth sharing. This is what’s going to attract attention when people share their results on social media.
Create A Call-To-Action: Don’t let your interaction with the audience end at the results. Provide a call-to-action for your audience. It can be something as simple as a link to your website, or maybe even personalized links to product recommendations.
Part II: Distributing Your Quiz
Now it’s time to put your quiz through the ultimate test by promoting it on social media. Your major outlets for social networks would be Facebook and Twitter, but if you wanted to take it a bit further, you can also use paid advertising on Facebook to give your quiz that extra boost.
Share Your Quiz on Facebook and Twitter
When sharing your quiz on Facebook or Twitter, be sure you check off each of these to get the most out of promoting your quiz:
Be sure to use an attractive image to represent your quiz.
Make sure you have a captivating headline for your quiz.
Share both the image and the caption with a shortened link to track results.
Don’t Be Afraid to Use Paid Advertising on Facebook
The process of promoting your quiz through Facebook via paid advertising can be a fairly lengthy operation, so to save you guys some time, we’ve truncated the whole process into a more time-friendly summary.
Selecting Your Target Audience: You have your choices of selecting a target audience by location, demographics, behaviors, and connections. You can even break these categories down even further. Let’s take location for example. We can narrow down the location to country, state/province, city, and zip code. Why would we want to do this? Maybe your brand wants to target an audience within its immediate vicinity. We don’t know. It’s up to you how you want to set the parameters for your target audience. So give it a try.
Creating A Custom Audience: Creating a custom audience consists of working with a list you’ve uploaded ahead of time. Facebook then generates an audience based on that list of previous customers you’ve already worked with.
Part III: Marketing Automation Follow-Ups
Here’s the fun part: following up on the leads you’ve collected. With the help of marketing automation, this may not take as much effort on your end as you might’ve thought.
We’re going to follow-up on your leads the very moment people opt-in, and in the course of two weeks, we’re going to show you how to nurture these leads until you can finally convert them into paying customers.
Here’s a four-step sequence that your marketing automation email follow-ups should live and die by:
Thank Your Audience for Taking Your Quiz First
Immediately after someone opts-in, send him or her an email that telling them “Thank you for taking our quiz!” This will remind your audience that they’ve opted-in, and it’ll also help assert your brand. It’ll give people a head’s up that you’ll be getting in touch with them soon.
Encourage Your Audience to Retake Your Quiz
After a couple of days, we’re going to pick up where your audience left off: their quiz results. Inform your audience about the other results they could have gotten. This may prompt your audience to retake your quiz, and maybe to even share their new results.
This is the perfect transition from your “thank you” email to sending out different content.
Build Trust with Case Studies or Testimonials
After a week, now would be a good time to build trust between you and your leads. Introduce testimonials or customer case studies to familiarize your audience with your brand and what other people think about it. This not only makes your brand look good, but it also lets your audience get more comfortable with who your brand is and what it stands for.
Convert Your Leads into Paying Customers
After two weeks, it’s time to convert those leads. Your audience should be familiar with your brand by now. Use incentives, like a webinar signup or coupons and discounts to encourage your leads to buy into your brand.
The rest is up to you and your expertise in converting leads into customers. These marketing automation follow-ups did most of the work for you, so it’s your turn to close the deal.
Part IV: Examples of Quiz-Use in Every Industry
It’s time to take a quick look at several examples of brands from different industries and how they implemented quizzes in their marketing strategy. Seeing these examples should give you a solid foundation when it comes to considering the use of quizzes in your own marketing strategy.
Retail: Z Gallerie
Z Gallerie is known for its commitment to providing furnishings, art, and accessories to both professional and amateur interior designers alike. They created the quiz “What is your Z Gallerie Style Personality?” to provide a personalized experience for every potential and current customer.
Z Gallerie used a personality quiz as a way of bringing results that offered personalized product recommendations as a part of their marketing strategy. This method brought in a massive amount of leads per day which they followed-up with marketing automation.
It allowed Z Gallerie to continually recommend products tailored specifically to each person based on their individual quiz results. Now that’s online shopping done right.
Software: Cloud Sherpas
Cloud Sherpas specialized in cloud advisory and technology services for the world’s leading brands. (They’ve since been acquired by Accenture.)
Cloud Sherpas used their quiz to gauge each individual’s level of maturity, which helped determine the more qualified leads for their marketing strategy. They also promoted their blog on Facebook with the quiz attached.
Cloud Sherpas’ quiz brings in 3-4 qualified leads a day. Nothing like quality over quantity, am I right?
Marketing: The Foundation
The Foundation focuses on building businesses with entrepreneurs through the idea of building backward. It’s an incredibly interesting concept, and with it, they created the quiz “Do You Have An Entrepreneurial Mind?” based on an existing eBook they had which covered the basic types of business owners.
The Foundation used a quiz in its marketing strategy by pairing it with a Facebook ad campaign. This combination was able to cut their cost per lead from $6.00 to $3.80, and collected over 16,000 leads and millions in revenue. That’s quite the turnout if you ask us.
Nonprofit: Pin Cancer
Pin Cancer’s call-to-action is the rallying of the US wrestling community to fight against, you guessed it: cancer. Their noble efforts have prompted the aid of their quiz “Which USA World Team Member Are You?” as a means of driving social traffic and raising awareness on cancer.
On a site that normally sees 200 visits per day, Pin Cancer had the best day ever when their quiz went up, driving social traffic up to 6,000 in a single day and bringing in 3,800 new email subscribers. Talk about turning the tables on cancer!
Who knew implementing quizzes into your online marketing strategy could be so effective? We’ve just covered a lot of material, but hopefully, you got a lot out of it.
Just to recap, we went over the entire quiz creation process, so you should be familiar with how to create your own quiz by now. Distributing your quiz will really put it to the test, but as soon as you generate those leads, you know exactly how to nurture them until conversion.
Don’t let quizzes fly under your radar any longer; try using them in your marketing strategy to see just how far your brand can get.
Have you used quizzes in your marketing strategy? What were the results?
With the ability to take a lot of guesswork out of conversion rate optimization, eye-tracking software and heat maps can reveal some startling insights into increasing conversions (and avoiding sales killers) that can benefit every business.
Here are 7 important eye-tracking studies that give a sneak peek into common browsing patterns and elements of human behavior that all marketers need to know.
1. Eye Tracking Shows We Must Avoid “Dead Weight” Visuals
You don’t have to be an expert in UX (user experience) to understand the importance of Fitts’s law.
While seemingly complicated at first glance, one of the fundamental lessons Fitts’s law communicates is that object “weight” (in the visual hierarchy) is a big determinant in what attracts eyes and mouse clicks.
Consider this recent case study from TechWyse that examined the homepage of a truck service with a heat map:
As you can see from the first test, the non-clickable “NO FEES” button was hogging a lot of attention, but it is not a call-to-action and its information isn’t the most important on the page.
That’s no good.
Also, it is right next to one of the most important CTAs on the page (the phone number) and it stands out so much that it actually is drawing people away from other more important elements.
Take a look at the changes they made to alleviate this problem.
Much better!
The “Call Now” button clearly is getting a lot of attention over every other section on the page, which is great because it is how customers get started contacting the business!
Lesson learned: When you are assembling a persuasive landing page, be sure the elements that “pop” are the ones that matter, and that you aren’t giving too much weight to visuals that don’t encourage customers to take action.
2. Eye Tracking Shows The Effect of Video on Search Results
Most marketers have seen those SERP (search engine results page) heat maps that show the top 3 rankings hogging all of the action… But what role do visual elements play in holding visitor attention?
In an interesting heat map study published on Moz, videos were shown to be particularly powerful in capturing eyeballs through eye tracking, even when they weren’t the #1 result.
As you can see below, both direct video results (such as a hosted YouTube video) and embedded video results (videos embedded on a webpage) commanded more attention than a regular search listing, especially if they were near the top of the results.
Why video?
Video is usually is interpreted as a product video. However, instead of assuming, test to see if it impacts your search traffic for top keywords.
Lesson learned: If you want to stand out at the top of some competitive search results, you may want to test an embedded video rather than authorship for product pages.
3. The Power of Directional Cues’ Eye Tracking
Using visual cues to guide visitors to key areas of your site is nothing new, but just how effective is it?
According to studies such as the aptly named Eye Gaze Cannot be Ignored, it is incredibly effective. Human beings have a natural tendency to follow the gaze of others, and we have been coached since birth to follow arrows directing us to where we should be looking and going.
Consider the following eye tracking heat map example that included a page with a baby and a compelling headline for taking care of the baby’s skin.
Unfortunately, from a marketing standpoint, this is a problem because the copy isn’t commanding enough attention.
Now look at the browsing patterns when an image of the baby facing the text was used.
As you can see from the eye tracking heat map, users focused on the baby’s face again (from the side) and directly followed the baby’s line of sight to the headline and opening copy. Even the area of text that the baby’s chin was pointing to was read more!
Lesson learned: Visuals are an important part of a site’s overall design, but most pages can be optimized by including images that serve as visual cues for where visitors should look next.
4. Eye Tracking Studies Show The F-Pattern Works Across the Board
According to this study from the Nielsen Group, all across articles, e-commerce sites, and search engine results, people almost always browse in an F-shaped pattern that heavily favors the left side of the screen.
This coincides with additional research that shows people tend to view the left side of the screen overall far more than the right.
It is important to note all of these studies were conducted with English speaking (and reading) participants. The opposite was true for those users whose languages read from right to left.
Is it any wonder that some of the most tested websites in the world (like Amazon) have placed a clear priority on the left sides of their homepages?
Lesson learned: Web users tend to browse sites based on their reading habits. For English speaking people (and languages with similar reading patterns), the left side of the screen is heavily favored, and all sites tend to be browsed in an F-pattern.
5. Eye Tracking Shows “The Fold” isn’t That Important
Relying on the screen above “the fold” to do all of the heavy lifting is one of the biggest usability mistakes you can make. The idea that it is the only place web users will browse is a complete myth.
Multiple tests (including this one and this other one) have shown that users have no problem scrolling down below the fold. Surprisingly, they will browse even further down if the length of the page is longer.
KISSmetrics conducted an interesting A/B test on his homepage and found that a page with 1,292 words beat a page with 488 words by 7.6%. And it didn’t end there. The leads from the long-form version of the page were higher in quality than the leads from the variation.
Another great test from the folks at ContentVerve showed that moving the call-to-action far below the fold actually boosted conversions by 304 percent.
Lesson learned: Although it’s dependent on the page you are testing, you shouldn’t be afraid of placing important elements below the fold (and testing them there), because it gives people time to read your copy before they take action.
6. Eye Tracking Proves That Newsletters Should Be Short and Sweet
Who’d have thought that eye tracking and email marketing could be best of friends?
According to this eye tracking study conducted by the Nielsen Group, people scan emails very quickly, and the only areas they give any appreciable amount of time to at all are the initial copy and headlines.
From the study:
Users are extremely fast at both processing their inboxes and reading newsletters. The average time allocated to a newsletter after opening it was only 51 seconds.
This means that you need to get to the point in your emails in under a minute. The message should be as compelling as that of an online article, but you don’t have as much time to capture attention as you might in an article.
This coincides with a study from MarketingSherpa that shows people prefer short, clear, and un-creative headlines for their emails. (Creative headlines can seem mysterious, and mystery in an inbox may equal spam.)
Lesson learned: Once you’ve earned the right to appear in a prospect’s inbox, be sure to keep that privilege by crafting emails that are clear and get to the point quickly. You don’t have as much time to broadcast your message as you would in an online article.
7. Eye Tracking Proves The Power of Pre-Sale Prices
If you’ve ever seen this video by Dan Ariely, you know that sometimes seemingly “useless” price points actually are quite important for increasing conversions.
One common pricing element that fits the bill here is the “pre-sale” price. It isn’t literally used by customers because they don’t pay that price… But is it still “used” to evaluate the new price?
In an effort to answer this question, Robert Stevens of THiNK Eye Tracking conducted a test that examined how people look at prices and products on shelves.
In the initial test, results weren’t too surprising. Most people spent time looking at prices and product packaging.
But if the pre-sale price was included, would people look at it?
They did!
Better yet, Stevens also tested perception of the sale price to see if viewing the pre-sale price played a role.
These were his findings:
After consumers selected the smoothie of their choice, I asked them if their purchase was a good value for the money on a 7 point “like” scale (with 1 being very good value for the money and 7 being not very good value for the money).
Consumers who saw only the promotional item gave a mean score of 2.4. Consumers who saw the promotional item next to a full-price premium offer gave it 1.7, even though they purchased the same item!
Basically, humans are pretty bad at evaluating price without contextual clues (as argued by Ariely in this TED talk). We find it much easier to make decisions when we have something to base them on.
That’s why people often view a sale price as a better value when they can see what they really are saving. Without that contextual clue, the sale price is hard to evaluate because they don’t know what the product usually sells for.
Lesson learned: Sometimes “useless” prices like pre-sale prices can be used by customers to evaluate the value of a potential purchase.
The people you’re trying to reach or retain already have active email addresses. Heck, most of them used or would use one to sign-up for your service or product.
If you can get into (and stay) in people’s inbox, you can make a ton of money. Data shows companies can generate $38 for every $1 email investment.
Unfortunately, getting into an inbox is not a stroll in the park.
Now that’s where the best email marketing companies come in.
These companies will help you to strategize, collect relevant email addresses, create, and manage email marketing campaigns that drive business growth.
How do I know this?
Our team at Neil Patel Digital vetted hundreds of email marketing companies based on their brand reputation, client portfolio, ratings, and their areas of expertise.
The result?
The very top email agencies you can trust. Not only would they get you into the inbox of your ideal customers, but these companies can keep you in there till you turn prospects into brand advocates.
I’m confident the best email marketing companies listed above and reviewed below are reliable because of their proven track records.
Hire any of them, according to your needs, and they’ll help you to turn email marketing into a growth channel for your business.
Without further ado, let’s explore each of these companies and see for yourself why we consider them the very best.
#1 Neil Patel Digital – Best For Email Content
Email marketing is effective, no doubt. But it has its downside too.
According to two different studies, between 0.19% and 0.52% of your email subscribers would unsubscribe per email you send.
Now, guess what was one of the top three reasons found Jilt, an email marketing software, responsible for why people unsubscribe from emails?
Bad content!
In other words, irrespective of how excellent your email marketing strategy is, writing killer emails that resonate with your prospects and keeps you in their inbox requires excellent content.
And that’s where we, Neil Patel Digital, come in. It is also why clients, from startups to enterprise brands, love working with us.
Email is also an excellent channel for content distribution.
However, he quality of content has to be amazing. If not, your unsubscribes will tank the ROI of your email campaigns.
Again, this is one area we stand out from the crowd.
At Neil Patel Digital, our email content service starts by producing engaging content your customers and prospects will love.
Then, we use email marketing as one of the channels to promote it:
You can check out Neil Patel Digital’s content services here.
#2 InboxArmy – best for full-service email management
For in-house teams looking for rapid email marketing turn around, InboxArmy comes highly recommended.
As a full-service email management company, InboxArmy offers a spectrum of services, including email templates’ design, custom coding, and 360-degree email marketing management:
This agency offers volume-based pricing for companies and white label services for fellow digital marketing agencies, which goes to prove their experience.
And they serve clients from government agencies like Texas Health Resources, to companies such as LandCentral, Airbnb, Jockey, and several others.
#3 Fix My Churn – best for SaaS onboarding email and churn
When it comes to email marketing, Software as a Service (SaaS) brands have special needs.
First, when new trial users sign-up, they need excellent email onboarding sequences to convert them into happy, paying customers.
And if an existing customer stops using your product or wants to churn, you can retain them with relevant churn email.
Fix My Churn collaborates with tech companies with a monthly subscription business model.
The company applies top-notch SaaS copywriting skills to craft relationship-based email sequences to keep customers happy.
#4 Action Rocket – best for custom HTML & CSS enterprise email
Action Rocket needs no introduction in the enterprise email marketing sector.
This company even partners with the top email marketing software brands like MailChimp, Litmus, and Campaign Monitor to drive innovation in the email space.
Action Rocket has years of experience strategizing and executing custom HTML and CSS email and CRM development programs for enterprise companies:
Founded in 2011, the company works with a knit-team of experienced developers who are excellent at strategy, design, and coding of complex and customized email programs.
And their clientele speaks for themselves, including the BBC, Marks & Spencer, Global Radio, and many others.
#5 SmartMail – Best for eCommerce email marketing
SmartMail is the Done For You (DFY) email marketing company that comes highly recommended by ecommerce businesses.
This company handles everything ecommerce email marketing for online stores. And excel most at launching campaigns based on automated triggers.
Across the customer lifetime cycle, SmartMail is exceptional at strategizing and executing optimized email marketing campaigns for ecommerce businesses.
And they have a track record and excellent results to show.
SmartMail has generated over $187 million in revenues for ecommerce brands via email, sent billions of emails, and serve over 87 businesses, including Skechers, French Connection, Cotton:On, and others.
5 Characteristics That Make a Great Email Marketing Company
What characteristics make an email marketing company great?
They are as follows.
1. Well-versed in content creation
Most companies get buried in strategizing and outlining plans for email marketing.
The quality of your email’s content goes a long way in determining how effective your email marketing campaigns would be.
A fundamental characteristic of the top email marketing company is to focus on creating engaging content to power your email campaigns.
And a world-class email company will help you blent top-tier content with amazing promotions to also get the conversions that you need. Great companies blend the two seamlessly.
2. An Impressive Portfolio
An email marketing company that claims to be among the best must have something to back that claim up.
One of such things is their client portfolio.
Who have they implemented a series of email marketing campaigns for? Were those campaigns successful?
Anyway, you don’t even need to ask a top email marketing company those questions, as you’ll find the answers in their clients’ portfolio.
And looking out for this portfolio-displaying characteristic in top email marketing also does you good.
It helps you to see who they have helped and to decide if they’ll be a good fit for your company.
In its 40 years of existence, email marketing has evolved tremendously.
What worked yesterday may not work today. And even if it does work, it may require a different approach.
Due to the always-evolving nature of trends and modern strategies applicable to email marketing, top companies must keep pace with these changes to deliver the best work.
Thought-leadership is how the top email marketing brands keep such needed pace with the industry.
And they do this by sharing new learnings, experiments, emerging strategies, and tactics publicly to retain brand reputation among other professionals.
So, you should do some research and look out for this characteristic, as it is an excellent way to spot a top email marketing company.
4. Real Life Testimonials
Anyone can claim to be the best, but it is what others say about them shows their competence most.
In the business setting, you’ll find how past and existing clients feel and say of a company’s work in the testimonials they leave behind.
The truth is executing a successful email campaign that drives growth for a company is hard.
A lot of thought goes into a successful email marketing campaign.
From strategy to the acquisition of email addresses, selection of email marketing software, email copywriting, and campaign management, they all require some different kind of expertise.
Established email marketing brands are never a one-person show. It is usually a team of experts, collaborating to drive results.
And that’s one characteristic of top email marketing companies: Displaying the entire team that works to plan, execute, manage, and optimize email campaigns:
What to Expect from a Great Email Marketing Company
Ultimately, an exceptional email marketing company to help you turn email into a real business growth channel that:
Nurture prospects into customers
Facilitates customer relationship management
Turns email marketing into a reliable content medium.
But to get to these benefits, there are steps to expect before you start working with one. Some of the most notable ones are what follows.
1. A discovery session
As you saw in the review and categorization of the best email marketing companies based on their areas of expertise above, not all can serve all clients across all industries.
To determine if they can solve your specific problems, excellent email marketing companies start by getting to fill an inquiry form.
Filling this inquiry form allows you to share your challenges and business goals related to email marketing.
After filling this form, expect a discovery session where an expert would talk one-on-one with you to understand your needs better.
2. Research & strategy recommendations
A discovery call allows the company to gain more clarity and context about your business needs relevant to email. But, don’t expect them to propose a solution right off the bat.
Top email marketing brands would typically use what you shared with them to delve into research.
From there, they can make sense of how to tackle your challenges and identify the best possible strategies they can deploy to work with you.
Expect to receive a summary of their research and recommendations via email or another call, which usually ends with deciding if you’re fit to work together.
3. A contract with project deliverables
If everything goes well up to this point, and you like their recommendations, expect a contract that outlines what a top email marketing company would do, and what it’ll cost to work with you.
This contract also outlines project timelines and deliverables, legal requirements to work together, and your expected investment.
4. Client onboarding
If the contract, project scope, deliverables, pricing, and others look good, exceptional email marketing companies would have a custom onboarding process to initiate the process of working with your company.
This onboarding process will help you and the company to establish an understanding of how to manage your product, and any other thing necessary for a smooth working relationship.
Start Email Marketing from Day One
Don’t make the mistake of starting email marketing later on.
Most businesses recognize the need for social media, SEO, content marketing, and others early on, but they leave emails to the backseat because it is not trending.
Well, you shouldn’t.
A few reasons to take start email marketing from day one are:
Marketers who used email marketing to segment their audience said they saw a 760% increase in revenue.
That’s unreal.
Whether you do email yourself and get help from one of the top email companies, get started today.
Choosing the right Amazon marketing agency can be the difference between becoming a thriving seller on Amazon or one that flops.
Do you know why I say so?
A pool of more than 2.5 million sellers fights for the attention of Amazon’s customers. Out of this, only 10% generate annual sales of more than $100,000.
Only a few sellers make a great income on the platform.
Are you a seller struggling to attract buyers on Amazon? Would you like to increase your store’s reach and drive more revenues?
By partnering with a top Amazon marketing agency, you can improve the visibility of your store, reach more buyers, and drive sales.
Below, you’ll find my recommended steps on how to choose a top Amazon marketing company to grow your store business on the platform.
Know Your Goals and Desired Outcomes
A marketing agency won’t re-invent your store on Amazon.
They’ll work with you to achieve your goals and realize your business outcomes.
If you, the store owner, fail to define what those goals and outcomes are, how can a marketing agency perform magic and turn you into an overnight success on Amazon?
It doesn’t work that way.
To help you get started, let’s explore some scenarios when you should hire an Amazon marketing agency.
Example #1: Rank your products higher in Amazon search
I’ve already mentioned that Amazon has over 2.5 million sellers.
But that’s nothing close to the number of products vying for your potential customers attention and credit cards on the e-commerce site.
According to Retail Touchpoints, more than 353 million different products for sale on Amazon.
With so many stores and products, your store basically doesn’t exist unless it ranks well in Amazon’s search.
Let’s assume you sell belly button rings and someone goes on Amazon to search for it:
This search term alone produced over 96 different products on Amazon’s first search results page that included about 12 stores.
The higher your rankings, the more visibility you have with Amazon’s customers. And more visibility equals more sales.
As you see in the screenshot above, an excellent way to achieve this is to ensure your store and product descriptions are optimized with relevant keywords.
Is this why you’re looking for an Amazon marketing agency?
Then, consider one with a battle-tested SEO-driven content marketing program, as both store and product descriptions are forms of well-targeted content creation.
Example #2: Promote your Amazon products on Amazon
Let’s keep using our belly button ring example.
This time, assume you’ve optimized your store and product descriptions, adhering to all Amazon SEO requirements.
Despite this, it’s possible to still have other sellers with similar products on Amazon rank higher than you. You can expect this because Amazon has several ranking factors.
For instance, see the first product listed for the belly button ring we searched earlier:
This product was promoted to the very first position on Amazon search results page. The store spent money to get their ad to the top of the list. It’s pay to play.
That’s why it has a “Sponsored” label.
This scenario shows that you can promote your products on Amazon to reach targeted buyers based on different criteria like search terms, locations, age range, etc.
If this is your goal, the outcome would be to skip the queue and reach potential buyers on Amazon.
Amazon has an entire ad network that you can now access. Like any ad network, it requires a ton of setup and lots of ongoing attention if you want to make a decent profit.
An Amazon marketing agency is ideal for this type of work. You already have your store and products, you just want an experienced team to run your ads for you.
Will an agency add to your total costs instead of running the ads yourself? Yes. But the ads will also perform a lot better. The agency will easily pay for itself.
So if you have either of these two goals, I highly recommend working with an Amazon marketing agency.
So, what characteristics should you look out for when choosing one?
6 Characteristics That Make a Great Amazon Marketing Agency
Below are six characteristics you’ll find in exceptional Amazon marketing agencies.
1. Demonstrated knowledge of the Amazon marketplace
Marketing your store and products on Amazon has its best practices.
It also has its dos and don’ts.
To determine if an Amazon marketing agency knows and puts them into practice, check if they have practical knowledge of how the Amazon marketplace works.
Exceptional Amazon agencies share these best practices in the form of how-to guides and training resources, showing how to drive more sales on Amazon:
2. A team of experts
Marketing, on its own, won’t do all the heavy lifting required to turn your Amazon store into a thriving business.
Other essential things like proper store setup, products’ listing optimization, brand-specific creatives, PPC management, and others must go into the equation.
And you won’t achieve all that with a one-person team.
Hence, a characteristic of great Amazon marketing agencies is that they work with a diverse team of experts.
3. A process for implementing their core service
In the agency world, a battle-tested process makes all the difference. It’s the only way to deliver reliable results with new clients.
Without a solid process, working with an agency is like rolling the dice. Sometimes it works, sometimes… it doesn’t.
Successful agencies will customize processes based on your unique needs but they should have a solid core with a proven track record.
For my team at Neil Patel Digital, we’ve developed a comprehensive program to help Amazon sellers drive traffic to their stores and product pages.
4. An impressive clients’ portfolio
Before you choose an agency, it’s important to examine who they’ve worked with in the past.
You’ll find this in their clients’ portfolio.
This is also a critical characteristic to check for, as it gives you a sense of the type of companies the agency typically works with.
Great Amazon marketing agencies take it one step by having an impressive portfolio of clients.
5. Great company culture
When choosing an agency, most people omit the company culture of an agency they want to partner with.
You shouldn’t!
Working with an Amazon marketing agency is usually a long-term partnership. If your beliefs are not aligned, you face the possibility of running into problems in the future.
To avoid this, choose an agency with a great company culture with similar values as your own.
6. Customer testimonials
Before you choose an Amazon marketing agency, take a moment to look out for testimonials they’ve received from past and present clients.
This gives you an idea of what people think and feel about their services. It also helps you to see if what the agency offers is worth the fee.
How to Work With an Amazon Marketing Agency
Working with an Amazon marketing agency follows a series of steps. And you should adhere to them to ensure a smooth partnership.
For great agencies, expect go through the following steps:
1. You’ll fill an inquiry form
When you visit the agency’s website, the first step is to fill their inquiry or contact form.
There’s usually forms for basic information about your business.
It’s also the first opportunity to share what your needs are and how you want them to help you.
For any well-run agency, you should hear back from them within 24 hours. If it takes longer than that, proceed with caution.
2. Discovery session
Experienced Amazon marketing agencies will want to do a one-on-one consultation session.
You should expect this, as it gives you the opportunity to share your needs and talk directly with a marketing expert.
3. Research and strategic recommendations
No two business cases are 100% identical.
Great agencies take what you share with them from the first call and perform in depth research to come up with recommendations unique to your Amazon store.
Usually, a second call will get scheduled to go through everything.
4. A Proposal and contract
By going through the recommendations delivered to you by an agency, you’ll gain more clarity if working with them is a good fit.
Right after this, you’ll usually receive a proposal and contract that sets the terms for working together.
5. Official client onboarding
Project management plays a very essential role when working with an Amazon marketing agency.
To ensure both parties have an understanding of who does what and when, excellent agencies would take you through an official client onboarding process.
Over this process, you’ll get to know who is your account manager (the expert overseeing your project) and get a full scope of the project, deliverables, and timelines.
How to Find The Right Amazon Marketing Agency For You
So far, I’ve walked you through the characteristics and steps to working with an Amazon marketing agency.
But one question remains, how do you find an agency that is right for you?
The first step is to always know your goals.
The next step is to choose an agency with expertise in the area you need help with.
To help you, we profiled the top Amazon marketing companies and what they excel most at.
The 5 Top Amazon Marketing Agencies
#1 Neil Patel Digital — Best for Store and Product Content Marketing
With SEO-driven content marketing, you can score higher Amazon SEO points by optimizing your store and product descriptions.
In turn, your store and products will become more discoverable with higher rankings when potential customers search on Amazon, as you saw in the example above.
It’s been ages since you could get away with one good photo and a basic product description. These days, you need a host of professional photos, videos, optimized descriptions and titles, comparison tables, FAQs, and detailed descriptions that address every objection in the market.
This is a core part of the offering at Neil Patel Digital:
Companies from across the world, from startups to enterprise brands, trust Neil Patel Digital.
#2 Thrive Agency — Best for Amazon PPC
When potential buyers research products or services on Amazon, a whopping 64% of them don’t click beyond the 1st three results.
To get your store and products in those top positions, you may need to use sponsored posts on Amazon.
Another name for this is Amazon PPC.
Thrive Agency is a company with over a decade of experience in this area:
This company has over 150 five-star reviews across Google, Facebook, and Clutch with Amazon-specific case studies.
#3 Vertical Rail — Best for Amazon Account Management
Your Amazon store account health, product deactivations, shipping performance, intellectual property violations, and several others have a direct impact on how well your marketing performs on Amazon.
Vertical Rail is the agency I recommend to ensure you’re 100% compliant on Amazon and reach your marketing goals:
This agency has great case studies on how to run your Amazon store more efficiently.
#4 Voice SEO – Best for Amazon Echo and Voice Search Optimization
TopSEOs, an agency ranking domain, ranked Voice SEO as its number one company for voice search optimization, and they have accreditations to demonstrate their expertise.
#5 Voy Media – Best for Amazon Social Media Marketing
Most successful Amazon sellers turn to social media to engage their target audience with the ultimate goal of driving traffic to their store and product pages.
If you want to take advantage of social media to drive sales for your Amazon store, Voy Media is great for that:
This agency combines strategy and creativity to help Amazon sellers drive sales on Amazon via various social media platforms.
Do You Really Need to Hire An Amazon Marketing Agency?
Yes, and I’ll tell you why.
To give your business a chance, standout from the crowd, and get found on Amazon when potential customers search for things you sell, you’ll need marketing.
And that’s where hiring an Amazon marketing agency comes in.
Whether you want higher rankings or want to run profitable Amazon PPC ads, get an expert that knows what they’re doing. There’s too much competition on Amazon to do it all yourself.
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