January 26, 2021
Google December core algorithm update winners and losers, 8 must-try digital marketing tactics for 2021, and 11 ways to make your website more accessible with inclusive design ...this is THE LATEST!
🗞️ Extra, extra! Read all about it!
🎁 I'm feeling generous — NOW you can get 50% off your IMPACT+ Pro membership through January 30! Need a reason to lockdown our January promotion of IMPACT+ Pro? Starting now, Pro members will get access to IMPACT's interactive virtual events for the year FOR FREE. You'll also get exclusive discounts for Digital Sales and Marketing World and our deep-dive bootcamps. $49/month or $490/year — a savings of $2,000.
Earlier today, I made a purchase at Target for purely superficial reasons....
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Like the sometimes (see: "always") shallow girl that I am, I was 100% reeled in by PrettyLitter due to the "Pretty" in the product title. (Although the health monitoring features, odor seal guarantee, and promised longevity did, of course, help seal the deal for this savvy shopper.)
This evening, further intrigued by the product after reading a few other reviews, I decided to fire up their business website.
And I found myself immediately disappointed:
How on earth do you have a kitty-centric website with a call-to-action to "Get Started Now" that doesn't say "Get Started Meow"?!
What a baffling marketing misstep.
Like Dumbledore, Michael Scott, Captain Luc Picard, Britney Spears, Florence Nightingale, Alexander Hamilton, Jake from State Farm, Rex Grossman, Richard Pryor, Cher, Abraham Lincoln, Adele, Michael Corleone, or Bilbo Baggins once said (the internet isn't fully aligned on this):
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
And now, here's THE LATEST...
👉 Now that the dust has settled, here are the winners and losers from the Google December core algorithm update (5-minute read)
If you were anything like us, you were mentally cheering when you reached December of last year. You. Made. It. Downtime was coming in just a short few weeks so you could breathe, recharge, and lock in your 2021 goals. But we’re not allowed to have nice things, right? So, Google decided to be a Grinch and throw one final curveball at the end of 2020, when it rolled out a core algorithm update on December 3. Of course, it takes awhile when these massive updates occur to understand the implications. Thankfully, IMPACT Director of Training Justine Thomas is here with a full rundown (complete with exclusive expert insights) on the winners and losers of the latest Google core algorithm update.
📚 Related reads and resources:
👉 8 must-try digital marketing tips and tactics to use in your 2021 strategy (10-minute read)
Kristen Harold (our director of demand generation) tees this piece up perfectly, "As we’re getting into the rhythm of 2021, I’m challenging myself and my team to not let uncertainty in the world hold us back. I want to use this time to optimize, try new things, and stay ahead of the game, not just keep our heads above water. With that in mind, I started diving into some of the biggest trends for this year and have come up with a list of must-try tips that are both easy to implement and can yield BIG results!" Are you excited? Awesome, go check out Kristen's in-depth, research-backed article showcasing eight must-try digital marketing tips for this brand new year.
📚 Related reads and resources:
👉 11 inclusive design tactics to make your website instantly way more accessible to your ideal buyers (13-minute read)
For many of us, the web has become an ever-present facet in our everyday lives, however, what many people don’t realize is that not everyone’s experience using this ever-present resource is an equal one. If you’re one of the one billion people in the world who experiences some form of disability, then connectivity and ease of use on the web are not always guaranteed. It's with that in mind that IMPACT UX Designer Joe Rinaldi has put together this thought-provoking, actionable list of 11 powerful inclusive design tips to make your website more accessible to everyone.
📚 Related reads and resources:
👀 What's the hot IMPACT+ gossip?
IMPACT+ not only has the on-demand training you need to be successful, it also has a supportive community ready to help you achieve your goals. And here's what we're talking about right now:
⭐ Become a video selling all-star
Are you ready to truly stand out to your prospects, while making their buying journey seamless? Then you've got to infuse the right video content into your entire sales process. At the Video Selling Bootcamp on February 3, you'll learn tips and tricks for creating the right content, how to leverage it at every phase, and close deals in record time with video.
Get your tickets today for just $139 (normally $399) using the promo code "NOMS" in honor of Ham and Nugget's never-ending pursuit of noms. This is the LOWEST price you can get for these super-interactive, hands-on learning events.
🤐 Weeklong nonsense
With everything going on in the world, you now get nonsense in every single issue of THE LATEST...
This is me. All the time. All. The. Time.
By
Liz Moorehead
Editor-in-Chief, Speaker, Host of 'Content Lab' Podcast
About
|
January 14, 2021
3 powerful landing page conversion tips, Google testing short-form video carousel on mobile SERPs, and how to spend your monthly digital marketing budget ...this is THE LATEST!
🗞️ Extra, extra! Read all about it!
🔔 Get 40% off your IMPACT+ Pro membership through January 30th! Pro memberships include courses and lessons, past event recordings, virtual peer groups, future virtual events, and more! Snag your discounted Pro membership now to save.
As digital marketing nerds, we thrive on big goals, right?
Maybe you want to get more leads that, you know, are actually qualified for your products and services. Or perhaps you want to increase lead conversions on your landing pages, because those are kind of important to this whole inbound marketing thing.
That is, of course, unless you're where I am currently...
In the world of Ham (left) and Nugget (right) — which exists in the 2-foot radius around this desk — the only goal they have is to improve their hand-to-mouth treat conversion ratio.
As much as I hate to admit it, they do possess some of the traits we look for — e.g., grit and determination to reach their goals against all odds — in the digital marketing pros we hire. I’m just not sure they have the right goals and aspirations to survive in this industry.
Now, here's THE LATEST...
👉 3 super powerful ways to dramatically increase your landing page conversions (8-minute read)
By a show of hands, how many of you are sick and tired of blog articles and videos that promise to help you strike some sort of landing page conversion goldmine, so you can spend the rest of your days sipping on piña coladas in Bora Bora? Yeah, us too. (Although some hang time on the beach does sound nice right about now.) Thankfully, out-of-this-world IMPACT Account Manager Hannah Woods is here to make your life easier with these three simple, effective, and crazy powerful tips for boosting landing page conversions... and they actually work.
📚 Related reads and resources:
👉 Google is now testing short video carousels in mobile search results page listings (2-minute read)
Consumers’ insatiable appetite for short-form video has spawned Google to get in the game, search-wise. Google is now testing a new mobile search-dedicated carousel in the search engine results page (SERP) for short-form videos that will include TikTok and Instagram clips. So, what do you need to know about this new potential Google SERP feature? IMPACT UX Designer Joel Waggener has you covered with this article, which lays out what Google's new mobile search video carousel means for digital marketers and brands.
📚 Related reads and resources:
👉 When it comes to your monthly digital marketing budget, how should you be spending it? (9-minute read)
Planning out your marketing budget can be a daunting task. No matter when you start the planning process — whether you’re wrapping up the fiscal year, at the end of the calendar year, or in the first few weeks in January like we are now — planning your monthly digital marketing spend can feel like a crapshoot. So, where do you start? Well, IMPACT Digital Sales and Marketing Coach Eric Dunn is here to save the day with this super comprehensive rundown about how the most successful businesses spend their digital marketing dollars each month.
📚 Related reads and resources:
🏆 Want better results? These bootcamps will help!
To start 2021 off on the right foot, we're offering three bootcamps to help you kick off the new year:
IMPACT’s bootcamps are a chance to dive deeper on these concepts in a more intimate setting where you can ask questions, share examples, and walk away with a plan in place for your next steps via our guided workbooks.
Get your tickets today for just $139 (normally $399) using the promo code "NOMS" in honor of Ham and Nugget's never-ending pursuit of noms. This is the LOWEST price you can get for these super-interactive, hands-on learning events.
📅 Digital sales and marketing events
🌶️ Hot topics in Elite
IMPACT Elite is our exclusive Facebook group for the brightest minds in digital sales and marketing. Here's a recent discussion that caught my eye:
☄️ Weeklong nonsense
With everything going on in the world, you now get nonsense in every single issue of THE LATEST...
FYI, Connor and I have this exact conversation with each other every day. So, you're in good(ish) hands, everyone! Don't panic!
By
Liz Moorehead
Editor-in-Chief, Speaker, Host of 'Content Lab' Podcast
About
|
January 12, 2021
Our top 10 digital sales and marketing news stories of 2020, how to run a revenue team meeting, and how to get your resistant sales team to use content ...this is THE LATEST!
🗞️ Extra, extra! Read all about it!
🔔 Get 40% off your IMPACT+ Pro membership through January 30th! Pro memberships include courses and lessons, past event recordings, virtual peer groups, future virtual events, and more! Snag your discounted Pro membership now to save.
One of my favorite feelings is learning how to do something new and then getting really good at it.
For instance, making a new cocktail. I recently attended a virtual mix-along where we learned how to make this drink:
It's vodka, elderflower liqueur, lime juice, simple syrup, and mint. But like with most great cocktails, the proportions and method both matter.
I love getting so good at making a certain cocktail I can make it from memory with the perfect proportions so it turns out the same every single time. Then I keep it in my back pocket for someday when we can, ya know...have people over again.
Unsurprisingly, I tend to apply this same level of hyper-fixation to my professional life. When I started working on transitioning our in person event to a virtual one, I attended tons of other events, read articles and watched videos, joined communities of other event planners, and obsessed over learning about what others were doing in the virtual event space.
It was never going to be enough to settle for simply "putting on" a virtual event. I wanted to get so good at it that our events would be, hands down, the best digital sales and marketing events out there. I like to think I achieved this to some extent but "really good" doesn't mean perfect and it doesn't mean you stop learning or practicing either.
What's something you want to get really good at this year? Is it time management? A certain style of knitting? Maybe it's using video in your digital sales and marketing? (You didn't think I'd make it through this intro without mentioning this, did you?)
Well, if getting really good at using video in your digital sales and marketing happens to be on your list, you've got to check out our two new deep-dive bootcamps.
The Video Marketing Bootcamp is January 20th and while tickets are currently $249 you can get them for just $99 using the code STEPHANIE for the next 24 hours.
The Video Selling Bootcamp is February 3rd and for the next 24 hours you can get these tickets for just $99 as well. Just use the code STEPHANIE.
If what you're looking to get really good at in 2021 is not using video in sales and marketing, hit reply and let me know what IS on your list! I'd love to know.
Now, here's THE LATEST...
👉Our top 10 digital sales and marketing news stories of 2020
(4-minute read)
2020 was, to over-simplify, quite a year. Digital sales and marketing were certainly not immune to the madness or overwhelm, but thankfully, we have numbers on our side to offer a bit of clarity. What stories mattered? What could we filter out? What did we need to take into the new year? In this insightful round up, IMPACT Associate Director of Content Ramona Sukhraj pulled together the news stories that saw the highest traffic on our site last year and what you need to know as we charge into 2021.
📚 Related reads and resources:
👉 How to run a revenue team meeting (+example agendas) (14-minute read)
A revenue team brings together key sales and marketing players within a company into one team that is centered around the shared goal of increasing company revenue, though the implementation of a content strategy. But, how do you actually successfully run a revenue team meeting? IMPACT Digital Sales and Marketing Coach Chris Marr dove into the nitty gritty of how to run a successful revenue team meeting complete with example agendas.
📚 Related reads and resources:
👉 Sales enablement content: How do you get your resistant sales team to use it? (8-minute read)
You’ve produced great content, probably a bunch of it. But, when you ask the sales team to start using that great content? You hear crickets. You know how important it is for the sales team to embrace your culture of content and yet nobody is listening. Or, maybe they’re listening, but they’re not really hearing you. In this helpful article, IMPACT Director of Inbound Training and Video Strategy Zach Basner unpacks how he thinks about buy-in in stages and how this can help you get your resistant sales team using content.
📚 Related reads and resources:
🎧 Hot off the press podcasts
A couple new podcast episodes dropped this week and I wouldn't want you to miss out on them!
📅 Digital sales and marketing events
🌶️ Hot topics in Elite
IMPACT Elite is our exclusive Facebook group for the brightest minds in digital sales and marketing. Here's a recent discussion that caught my eye:
What’s the best approach for building sub-brands under a parent brand in the HubSpot CMS?
Selfishly, I also started this thread. Wanna share something you're proud of? Need to vent? This is the spot!
👀 Weeklong nonsense
With everything going on in the world, you now get nonsense in every single issue of THE LATEST...
My friend Katarina got this tote bag from Duolingo. Pretty on point f you ask me.
Side note: I'm also trying to get really good at speaking French. And by that, I mean, I'm just starting to learn French.
By
Stephanie Baiocchi
Director of Membership & Events, Speaker, Co-Leader of the Chicago HubSpot User Group, Host of ‘The IMPACT Show’ Podcast
About
|
January 7, 2021
It won't be perfect... this is THE LATEST!
I didn't want to continue participating in my all-day meeting yesterday.
I didn't want to make any more decisions.
I didn't want to have any more opinions.
I didn't want to walk the dog.
I didn't want to eat.
I didn't want to turn off the news.
I didn't want to put my phone away, in case I missed a friend from home reaching out to tell me that they were finally safe.
I didn't want to go to bed last night, I didn't know if I could.
I didn't want to get up this morning.
I didn't want to brush my teeth.
I didn't want to put on clothes.
I didn't want to work.
I didn't want to do anything.
But I stayed in my all-day meeting yesterday. It wasn't perfect, but I'm glad I did.
I still made decisions and had opinions. It wasn't perfect, but I'm glad I did.
I eventually walked the dog and ate and turned off the news and put my phone away and went to bed. It wasn't perfect, but I'm glad I did.
Then I got up this morning and I put on my clothes and I brushed my teeth and I sat down for a full day's worth of work. It wasn't perfect, but I'm glad I did.
Jarring, historical events — no matter how you affiliate or identify yourself — are traumatic. Take care of yourself. Be kind to yourself. Give yourself grace. You need space to process, to grieve, to contextualize with friends, family, and loved ones. We all do, for we are human.
But don't let go and don't give up.
Our processes, our norms, our relationships, and our day-to-day activities are what empower us to achieve the forward progress we seek at home and at work and in the world around us. They guarantee the resilience (and the necessary growth) of our systems and institutions, however flawed they may be.
It won't be perfect, but you'll be glad you did.
💙 You should read these today (or tomorrow)
💙 You should watch these today (or tomorrow)
You will need to create an IMPACT+ account to watch these on-demand recordings:
💙 Upcoming IMPACT events to remember
We have three new bootcamp events coming up:
If you use the code "LATEST," you will receive a significant discount.
💙 Other events you may want to know about
💙 This will (hopefully) make your day better
This video helps me a lot when I am struggling. It is also one of the most profound and impactful videos I have watched in the past 10 years and one I often share with friends.
It's about how lobsters grow and the human response to stress.
It's under two minutes long.
By
Liz Moorehead
Editor-in-Chief, Speaker, Host of 'Content Lab' Podcast
About
|
January 5, 2021
10 essential 2021 marketing KPIs to track, 5 ways to kickstart your inclusive marketing efforts, and 6 logo design trends you can't ignore (and 3 to drop) ...this is THE LATEST!
🗞️ Extra, extra! Read all about it!
🔔 Ring in 2021 with our three brand new digital sales and marketing bootcamps! And you can use promo code LATEST get your tickets for only $140, instead of $399. Learn more about our upcoming bootcamps and register today!
I get it, there were a lot of big digital sales and marketing news stories this past year and there are numerous new trends we need to cover... but I'm interrupting your regularly scheduled "make smarter decisions faster" content programming for a very important announcement.
After a lot of thought and consideration — as well as an awe-inspiring moment of maturity and wisdom to realize I, in fact, cannot do everything all on my own — over the holidays, I made the decision to expand IMPACT's publishing team by hiring a new associate director of content:
She will be living with me to guarantee streamlined, synergistic
communication and collaboration.
Nugget Moorehead comes to IMPACT with an extensive background in noms and running laps around coffee tables, as well as more than five years of experience in squirrel-chasing and trail-hiking companionship.
Although she doesn't know how to read or write — nor am I entirely sure she looks at They Ask, You Answer as anything other than a shreddable chew toy — I believe she has the tenacity, the moxie, and the out-of-the-treat-box kind of thinking that will propel our content strategy forward in 2021.
Please join me in welcoming Nugget to the IMPACT content team. And with that, here's THE LATEST...
👉 10 absolutely essential marketing KPIs you can't afford not to measure this year (9-minute read)
When it comes to setting and tracking your marketing KPIs, many marketers and business owners give all their attention to the usual suspects — sales revenue, leads, and cost per acquisition. But there are a number of other KPIs you should be tracking in order to execute a more successful digital marketing strategy — helping you to identify which campaigns and tactics are having the biggest impact so you can reach your sales and marketing goals. And in this tactics-filled article from IMPACT Talent and Office Manager Carolyn Edgecomb, you'll uncover the 10 exact KPIs you need to be measuring (no matter what industry you're in).
📚 Related reads and resources:
👉 5 quick but powerful ways to kickstart your inclusive marketing efforts in 2021 (5-minute read)
From a business perspective, diversity and inclusion isn’t just a human resources initiative or social to-do. It’s something that can grow your audience of potential customers and, ultimately, grow your profits when done well in your marketing. Diversity and inclusion in marketing are about questioning the assumptions you make about who uses your product or service and how they use it. And in this insightful, must-read from IMPACT Managing Editor Ramona Sukhraj, you'll discover your roadmap for getting started with inclusive marketing for your company.
📚 Related reads and resources:
👉 Here are the 6 logo trends you can't ignore, and 3 you need to drop like a bad habit this year (5-minute read)
Logo design is a tricky game, of course. Balancing trends with creating a timeless emblem of your brand is no easy task. You don’t want to do anything too trendy so that you are quickly looking at a rebrand in a year or two. On the other hand, you don’t want to be so safe that your logo is entirely forgettable. Lucky for you, awesome human and IMPACT UX designer Marcella Jalbert is here with the inside scoop on the must-know 2021 logo design trends and what you need to stop doing this year.
📚 Related reads and resources:
🏆 Level-up with our New Year's Bootcamps
To start 2021 off on the right foot, we're offering three bootcamps to help you kick off the new year:
IMPACT’s bootcamps are a chance to dive deeper on these concepts in a more intimate setting where you can ask questions, share examples, and walk away with a plan in place for your next steps via our guided workbooks.
Get your tickets today for just $149 (normally $399) using the promo code "LATEST."
📅 Digital sales and marketing events
🌶️ Hot topics in Elite
IMPACT Elite is our exclusive Facebook group for the brightest minds in digital sales and marketing. Here's a recent discussion that caught my eye for those who work in non-profits:
👀 Weeklong nonsense
With everything going on in the world, you now get nonsense in every single issue of THE LATEST...
Honestly, I wouldn't put it past 'em...
By
Liz Moorehead
Editor-in-Chief, Speaker, Host of 'Content Lab' Podcast
About
|
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