There’s been much discussion about marketing automation in the past couple of years, but what is it exactly? Simply put: it’s the process of automating certain marketing activities (like repetitive tasks) for efficiency in order to help a business reach a marketing goal (to convert a lead, for example). Of all the automated marketing channels available, email remains the one most widely used by B2B marketers in particular. Citing data from Regalix’s December 2014 “State of Marketing Automation” B2B industry survey, eMarketer reports that email was the most important marketing automation feature cited amongst B2B marketers worldwide. In this post, we’ll discuss the promise and features of automated email marketing platforms, and tips on how to get started with your own automated email program.

Why automate email marketing?

Once set up properly, automated email marketing requires little to no actual personnel to manage – which is the primary time-saving, cost-effective feature driving its superior return on investment. Other capabilities that make email marketing platforms attractive include integration with customer relationship management (CRM) and sales tools. In its guide to B2B email marketing best practices, Eloqua compares basic email marketing to automated email marketing to illustrate the differences: Email marketing company Emma elaborates on the benefits of email automation in the “Automation Demystified” guide. The guide points out the effectiveness of targeted email messages automatically sent in response to a user’s actions (referred to as “triggered” emails), which generate a 70.5 percent higher open rate and a 152 percent higher click-through rate (CTR) than conventional “bulk” email blasts. Email marketing automation isn’t reserved for large firms. A recent case study published by MarketingSherpa shows how a relatively small B2B company, HighQ, realized an astounding 2,500 percent growth in its email list by implementing an automated email marketing program. Other email automation gains reported in the study are equally impressive, such as a 47 percent average open rate and an 18 percent average CTR.

Getting started with email marketing automation

There are several choices out there for email marketing automation. Besides Eloqua and Emma, you can check out Marketo and Salesforce’s email marketing arm, Pardot, to name a few. Depending on your budget and current email list (allowing for growth), there are several automated email marketing platforms from which to choose beyond those mentioned above. Here are some of the more important features to consider when selecting an email marketing automation platform:

• Ease of integration with other automated marketing technologies, such as CRM and sales. Is the email automation platform compatible with the CRM and sales software already in use? Will it readily integrate with them?
• Lead nurturing and scoring capabilities. Does the platform allow for lead scoring, and prompt lead nurturing emails accordingly?
• Real-time reporting and dashboards features. Can email campaign managers access critical metrics at a glance, in real time?
• Trigger campaign capability. Does the platform send follow-up emails to the list based on recent activity, such as downloading a white paper or filling out a form?
• Ability to segment and target market sectors. Can the list of subscribers be easily segmented beyond demographics to allow for targeted emails based on their past behavior and expressed interests?
• Adaptability to mobile. Does the platform’s email render well on tablets and cell phones?

While these considerations are by no means exhaustive, they’re a good starting point when shopping for an email automation platform. So go ahead and take a critical look at how you’re communicating with prospects and customers today, and ask if your business would benefit from automating those communications, and making them more personalized in the coming year. You can start small with just one campaign, and grow your knowledge from there.  

Over the past several years Google has placed a heavy emphasis on driving more personalized and contextually relevant search results. One of the main ways it achieves this is through localization of search results based on where a user is located geographically when the query is entered – a fact further compounded by the rapid growth in mobile search. With so many variables likely to impact your organic visibility it has become increasingly more important to understand how a site is performing across different local markets. Even if your institution is a single campus, it’s likely to have an interest in attracting the best and brightest students on a national-level. The following analysis highlights some key strategies for uncovering more about localized performance in key geographic markets and some actionable steps for optimizing your campaign.

Findings Summary: Tracking Google US Rankings is Just Not Enough

With the help of industry-leading SEO platform BrightEdge, the education SEO team at Fathom recently collected keyword data from five unique local search engines for a traditional university in Michigan. The research’s primary goal was better illustrate the differences in non-branded keyword rankings in Google local search engines vs. Google US over a three-month period. This analysis highlighted that non-branded keywords in Google’s geo local engines, on average, had a ranking difference of 11.06 positions from the Google US engine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the rankings performance was generally more positive for local engines closer to the University campus (i.e. in Michigan) as compared to Google Chicago. Additionally, an average of 51.94% of the tracked non-branded keywords were shown to have varied rankings across the different local search engines or displayed significant swings in rankings week over week. These swings were defined as volatility.  

8 Steps for Improved Local Search

With ranking fluctuation data in hand, Fathom and BrightEdge compiled an 8-point list of action items for colleges to execute in order to improve local search performance:

1. Track keywords at the local level: Understand that Google’s location-customized search doesn’t always behave in the same way as Google US. Enhancing local campaigns will be much easier when you understand these differences, and platforms like BrightEdge make local monitoring
2. Set measurable goals: Defining ideal outcomes will help in setting agendas and outlining next steps. If the goal is to increase traffic from a particular location by 10% year-over-year, start by using targeted queries in location-specific content.
3. Cover the on-site basics: It seems like a no-brainer, but making sure your site loads fast, is tidy and optimized for local search is imperative. Use geographic keyword modifiers and schema markup where possible to set the foundation for local engines to find you.
4. Tap into universal results: A large part of local search success for universities now involves universal search. Optimizing your social profiles, videos and images as you would written content is a must. This boosts the chances of gaining valuable recognition in Google Images, “carousel” and “places” listings. 
5. Cater to underperforming areas: Chances are you won’t be seeing the same success in each local search engine; knowing your trouble areas can help you create a plan of attack. You might consider creating geo-specific content like location pages or even investing in offsite advertising like radio spots or billboards.
6. Build credibility with local institutions: Partnering with local personalities or establishments in mutual areas of expertise can be a great way to build shared content and gain traffic to your site via external links.
7. Make friends with paid search: Building a sustainable local presence can be a long project. Rely on paid search while in the process of developing content to support organic search. Bidding up in areas of concern allows schools to gain at least some share of a particular results page or dominate it where they already have visibility.
8. Generate visibility outside your core market: Knowing that higher volatility in rankings exists in search engines outside of the physical location of the school, you’ll want to gain traction in these external markets. You could consider generating additional press around an out-of-state college fair or a feature on an alumnus doing great things in a crucial market.

Interested in learning more? Get the complete case study on local search for colleges and universities.

The Adobe Summit in Salt Lake City is the place to be from March 9-13 to learn how other marketers are succeeding and how they are using Adobe Marketing Cloud. Last year marketing executives from more than 5000 companies participated in this top-tier event. BrightEdge is once again a major sponsor, and we are looking forward to seeing current and future clients there.

Stop by our booth to talk with our team and to see a demo of the industry-leading search and content management platform, BrightEdge S3, and you maybe even win a fun prize. Our team will be showing the latest enhancements to the BrightEdge platform as well as the just-released BrightEdge Content Optimizer 3.0, which integrates with Adobe Experience Manager to help you create high performance, search-optimized content even before it’s first published.

What to expect at the Adobe Summit

When you’re not hanging out with the BrightEdge team, there’s plenty more to see and do at Adobe Summit this year. There are great keynote speakers such as writers Michael Lewis and Nate Silver and Lauren Bush, founder of FEED Projects. Together, there is quite a baseball connection with the author of MoneyBall, a baseball (and political) statistician and blogger and the niece of George W. Bush, who co-owned the Texas Rangers prior to being the 41st U.S. president, although with all that these folks have going on, I’m not sure if baseball will even be mentioned.

Adobe Summit also has 135 sessions in 10 tracks, including hands-on labs, all of which feature experienced marketers from top companies around the world. Besides speakers, there will be over 5000 innovative marketers from every imaginable industry attending the event. Beyond enhancing your skills and learning about emerging trends, lots of announcements are made at this conference, and you can be amongst the first to know, whether it’s coming from Adobe or even BrightEdge. While the days will be filled with exciting and exhilarating work, there are lots of fun parties at night. In fact, the Summit Bash is featuring the Grammy Award-winning band, Imagine Dragons. If you are able to stay through Friday, your conference pass gives you a ski lift ticket and transportation to the Canyons resort in Park City, Utah with its 19 chairlifts and 4,000 acres of beautiful terrain and great snow.

Preview our latest content technology stack integration for marketers

This year we will share a new enhanced version of Content Optimizer and also be announcing our groundbreaking latest innovation!. It is not be missed so please keep an eye out for more information over the coming weeks. We hope you are able to join BrightEdge at Adobe Summit this year. If you do come, please stop by and say hello or contact us to arrange an exclusive demo of our new technology for content marketers

You may have noticed or heard about an update to Google’s search algorithm in the first week of February and wondered “what’s going on?” Google claims that the changes are in line with the regular tweaks they make to their algorithm on a near daily basis, but this tweak had a larger effect than many. Because the SERPs for the affected keywords are still shifting, it’s too early to draw definitive conclusions. BrightEdge’s unique resources and perspective enabled an analysis of a broad set of keywords and yielded some interesting preliminary insights.

Key takeaways

1. Analysis confirms Google’s claim that this update wasn’t Panda or Penguin- related
2. Changes were not correlated with keyword search volume, head vs. tail type or the associated CPC for keywords
3. eCommerce keywords were most heavily affected

Panda/Penguin

In response to questions from Search Engine Land, Google claimed that the update wasn’t Panda or Penguin-related, describing it simply as a regular “tweak,” and Brightedge research confirms that it did not impact the types of sites generally affected by Panda or Penguin updates.

eCommerce

Within the analyzed set of keywords, eCommerce related terms showed the greatest increase in volatility, which was measured as the total number of position shifts for URLs on pages 1–3. For the most part SERPs remained similar with nearly all of the shifts involving movement of already-ranking results. There was no clear trend in the types of sites that moved up or down, nor was there a trend in the types of eCommerce keywords that were affected.

What it was not

Changes on affected SERPs weren’t correlated with keyword CPC, keyword search volume or head vs. tail keyword type. Although keywords with measurable CPC showed slightly higher volatility during the update period than ones with no ads, this is likely due to the fact that the keywords with the most volatile SERPs were eCommerce related and almost always have a non-zero CPC.

What you can do

As always, check your BrightEdge dashboards to see how this update affected your site in particular. A combined view of rank and traffic will give you excellent insight into what search terms were most affected. Most importantly, remember that SEO is a long-term game, and continuing to build excellent content and high quality links will always pay dividends, regardless of updates like this one.

Today, we're excited to announce the release of Content Optimizer 3.0 which integrates with Adobe Experience Manager. As clear leaders in the market BrightEdge has designed this product specifically with our customer feedback in mind to address the challenges they face on the increasingly competitive content battlefield. Content Optimizer 3.0 provides an in-depth snapshot of your competitors' content along with actionable insights into how you can adjust your own content accordingly to gain a competitive edge. Intrigued? Schedule your demo today. With 27 million pieces of digital content being shared every single day, we believe that understanding your competition is critical. The bottom line is that if you don’t have a competitive view, your content will not thrive in the long run.

With this new technology you no longer have to rely on trial and error to see what works; Content Optimizer 3.0 gives you an unrivaled understanding of the competitive landscape at every step of the process. Last year over 50 household name brands upgraded to the BrightEdge platform as more and more marketers share in the BrightEdge Content Performance Marketing vision. Available today, Content Optimizer 3.0 harnesses Data Cube intelligence to enable marketers to better understand how their content performs against competitors.

Content Optimizer 3.0 is powerful enough to be a standalone solution in its own right. With competitive analysis alongside actionable recommendations, Content Optimizer 3.0 helps marketers to produce quality content that is targeted for the user, optimized at the time of creation and measured at scale. Key features of Content Optimizer 3.0 include:

• Competitor Analysis: Marketers have access to a detailed analysis of competitors’ digital content. It’s presented in a beautifully designed interface that offers immediate insights to quickly take action. Content Optimizer is the only content marketing technology that looks at competing content, breaks it down in detail, and provides recommendations so marketers can create content that wins from day one.
• Consumer Demand Targeting: The easy-to-navigate dashboard makes Content Optimizer 3.0 more configurable to the unique needs of every marketer, regardless of industry, geography or scale. Content Optimizer 3.0 guides content authors to better understand consumer demand around specific keywords and topics, so they can take action and boost the performance of their own content.
• Content Optimization Progress Bar: The new progress bar feature offers marketers a detailed look at the momentum of their content optimization process, while also providing real-time best practices that allow marketers to optimize all content at point of creation.
• Tailored Content Solutions:Content Optimizer 3.0 operates within the constraints of mobile and stubborn website templates to help content authors generate tailored content solutions to maximize the performance of their content within the boundaries in which they work. 

Join BrightEdge at the Adobe Summit on March 9^th-13^th The Adobe Summit in Salt Lake City is the place to be from March 9-13 to learn how other marketers are succeeding and how they are using Adobe Marketing Cloud. BrightEdge is once again a major sponsor, and we are looking forward to seeing current and future clients there. We hope you are able to join BrightEdge at Adobe Summit this year. If you do come, please stop by and say hello or contact us to arrange an exclusive demo of our new technology for content marketers.

Digital marketing requires analytical skill, creativity and ability to learn new platforms and tools to manage and optimize marketing campaigns and programs. But, how do you acquire the skills that would make you more attractive to an employer? Along the same theme of knowledge, people need to know how, when and in what ways to use these different methods of acquiring, analyzing, and implementing that data into revenue-driving actions. In marketing, taking a data-driven approach is more important than ever, and the approach is constantly changing.

To quantify this, Georgetown University predicts that as the profession becomes more technical, specialized, and strategic, “significant growth is projected for market research analysts and marketing specialists...Specifically, demand for market research analysts will increase 41% through 2020” (much faster than average growth for other functions” US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a lot of job opportunity. So, how do you make sure that you and your team members are staying up-to-date to implement a successful buyer's journey? Or, as a soon-to-be/recent college graduate, how do you enable yourself to be an attractive prospect for employers?

If you just spent tens of thousands or more on an undergraduate degree over 4 years, it’s more than likely you didn’t major in SEO, Google Analytics, or Facebook (well, not officially). So how do you get a job in an industry comprised of specific vertical functions run on data and the understanding of each? Especially when unemployment rates are increasing relative to the decreasing levels of education one has (see chart below). There’s a lot of questions. But, consider the graph above--it displays a clear correlation between two things:

1. The amount of education is directly tied to the amount of money made.
2. The amount of education you have is inversely related to the rate of unemployment.

As you acquire escalating levels of academic credentials, statistics show that your salary and chances of job security will rise accordingly. In regards to the world of digital marketing, there are ways to arm yourself against job insecurity as well as increase your hireability, chances at a promotion or a new career direction with a higher salary ceiling. Namely, there are a variety of certifications specifically in Digital Marketing from accredited, 4-year educational institution. So, yes, in a way you can study digital marketing at a four-year university. Though these programs vary in content, pricing and prerequisites, they provide any degree earner with recognized knowledge in digital marketing subjects, an association with institutions of varying levels of academic and social prestige and a statistically favorable increase in hireability/promotability. Digital

Marketing 101

From private to public schools, large research university to state school, below is a list and brief overview of a few different major universities that offer digital marketing-specific ‘degrees’ or advanced certifications. *To note: I didn’t hand-pick these schools out. In the spirit of fairness and SEO, I searched for “online digital marketing courses universities” and picked the first 5. If nothing else, these schools practice what they preach. NYU Type: Certificate Total Cost: ~$4,125 Cost Per Course: $825 - $1995 Total Courses Required: 5 Prerequisites: None Time to Complete: Varies The NYU School of Professional Studies is built for and around professionals looking to “staying abreast of the cutting-edge trends and developments in your field.” They offer two programs both can be completed online or in-person:

• Certificate in Digital Analytics

o    “Upon completion of the certificate program, students are able to: analyze and use the data generated by digital analytics reporting tools to map back to business objectives”

• Certificate in Digital Marketing

o      Offers courses like “Digital Strategies for Marketing” covering an introduction to “using digital channels for inbound marketing and the development and use of digital marketing as a core strategy in the marketing plan” and “Applying Social Media Analytics” to “explore the most effective strategies for evaluating and monetizing captured data that determines consumer insights.” Georgetown Type: Certificate Total Cost: ~$5,370 Cost Per Course: $895 Total Courses Required: 6 Prerequisites:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• 3-5 years of experience in a position in the public, private, or non-profit sector
• “Participants should have fundamental marketing skills”

Time to Complete: within 2 years Georgetown’s Certificate in Digital Marketing includes four required courses such as “Web and Mobie Design & Usability” and “Advanced Marketing Analytics & Reporting” plus two Elective classes for a total of 10.8 “Continuing Education Units (CEUs).” University of Phoenix Type: Certificate (undergraduate) Total Cost: $10,980 + books & supplies (est. $810) Cost Per Course: Not specified Total Courses Required: 9 Prerequisites: Unsure Time to Complete: ~8 months University of Phoenix’s Digital Marketing Certificate (undergraduate) is run through the School of Business. It is offered online and for a complete course list, their descriptions, and the general program outline visit here. University of San Francisco USF offers three different types of certification programs with varying degrees of advanced methodology, cost and time commitment. But, all programs are 100% online, which also means 24/7 access.

• Advanced Professional Certificate in Internet Marketing (3 course series)

o    Total Cost: $4,955 o    Time to Complete: Unknown o    Who’s it for?

• “This dynamic, multi-course series is especially beneficial for professionals in traditional or interactive marketing agencies and corporate marketing departments...And for those looking to change jobs, this credential can open the door to an exciting and rewarding career.”
• Advanced Specialized Certificates (6 individual courses)

o    Total Cost: $1,980 o    Time to Complete: 8 weeks o    Courses Offered:

• Advanced Social Media
• Advanced Digital Analytics
• Advanced Email Marketing
• Advanced Affiliate Marketing
• Advanced Mobile Marketing
• Advanced Search Engine Marketing
• Specialized Mini Courses (8 individual, instant access courses)

o    Total Cost: $699 o    Time to Complete: 4 weeks access o    Other Details:

• Downloadable Certificate of Completion
• Direct access to industry experts (facilitation)

Cal State Fullerton Type: Digital Marketing Certificate Total Cost:

• California Residents: ~$3,048 + misc. fees
• Non-California Residents: ~$5,814

Cost Per Course:

• California Residents: $254/unit
• Non-California Residents: ~$626/unit

Total Courses Required: 6 Prerequisites: None Time to Complete: 4-6 weeks/course; whole program ~10+ months One interesting thing to note, during the course you will be “working with a mock company from start to finish developing real-world digital marketing plans.” The entirety of the course includes 120 hours of lecture equating to about 4-5 hours per week. Also note that non-California residents may only only enroll in the program if their state recognizes CSUF as a provider. Further information can be found here. These are not the entirety of digital marketing certificates offered by 4-year universities. Other notable programs include those from Duke University and Wharton at University of Pennsylvania, and there are many more programs at accredited universities like these. “I would be more likely to interview a candidate with a digital marketing certificate than a similar one who studied business or marketing generally.

Most university programs do not teach concrete tactical digital marketing skills. It would be even stronger if the person has applied those skills in any corporate or personal role, like a small business, which they could discuss and demo in the interview process. Knowing specific marketing platform tools is a huge plus,” says Erik Newton, the senior director of demand generation at BrightEdge.

At the end of the day, earning one of these certificates at any of the aforementioned schools gives you a leg up on most other job applicants, provides you with real-world and applicable hands-on experience to digital marketing practices and grants you credibility or affiliation with said university. Who knows, the knowledge you gain and the added educational degree you receive could lead to your next raise, job or opportunity! Take our digital marketing quiz to test your knowledge.

In its 2015 State of Marketing survey of more than 5,000 global marketers, salesforce.com reports that email marketing is increasingly “an integral touchpoint along the customer journey for the majority of marketers,” with 80 percent of respondents indicating that email marketing is central to their business and the buyer's journey for 2015 as compared to 58 percent in 2014. Other notable stats on the state of email marketing include the following:

• The Radicati Group projects that by 2017, there will be 206 billion emails sent to 4.9 billion email accounts worldwide, every day.
• MarketingSherpa’s 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report shows 60 percent of marketers reported a positive return on investment from their email marketing efforts; overall, survey respondents estimated an impressive 119 percent ROI from email marketing campaigns.
• Citing research from eMarketer, McKinsey & Company writes at Forbes that 91 percent of all U.S. consumers report using email daily, and conversions from emails are not only three times higher than those from social media, but also claim a 17 percent higher average order value than social media.

Boasting such convincing numbers, email marketing should definitely be an integral part of your online marketing strategy – but it’s much more involved than just creating a message and pressing “send.” In this post, we’ll go over some basic metrics to become familiar with when you’re ready to start tracking your email marketing performance.

Essential email marketing performance metrics

There are five common email marketing metrics used in evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of email marketing campaigns, and those are:

1. Deliverability rate
2. Open rate
3. Click rate
4. Conversion rate
5. Unsubscribe rate

1. Deliverability rate means the number of emails sent out that successfully reach the intended recipients’ inboxes, as opposed to bouncing back due to incorrect or otherwise defunct email addresses. Technically, even emails that end up in recipients’ spam folders are considered “delivered,” although chances are they will not be seen, much less opened. According to Comm100 CEO Kevin Gao, if “email deliverability bounces exceed three percent, then you have entered a red flag zone,” meaning you should revisit your list to see if your source of leads is degrading.

2. Open rate is the number of emails that are opened compared to the total number of emails delivered. In the theoretical scenario of all emails sent being opened by all of the recipients on your list (and assuming a 100 percent deliverability rate), the open rate would be 100 percent. Of course, the real world doesn’t operate that way. If your email open rate is falling short of expectations, try creating more compelling subject lines and testing them. You may also want to experiment with decreasing the frequency of your emails. Based on our own research, we further recommend that you match the timing of your email campaigns to the speed of your sales cycles to optimize open rates. For example, if a given sales cycle is fast and consumers are able to make decisions quickly, a weekly or bi-weekly email campaign may be appropriate. On the other hand, if a sales cycle is relatively long then you’ll likely want to consider a monthly cadence.

3. Click rate refers to the percentage of links contained in a given set of email messages that are “clicked on” relative to their open rate. If your email campaign’s click rates aren’t performing, you may want to consider strengthening your offer and call to action to encourage email recipients to click through to your website’s intended destination pages.

4. Conversion rate is the measure of actions taken per email messages delivered. As conversions are the ultimate goal of email marketing campaigns, the conversion rate is the defining metric of your email marketing’s efficiency and effectiveness. A standard conversion rate ranges from 1 percent to 4 percent, and depends on the industry If your conversions are falling short of the mark, it may indicate that the email list is saturated with your offer. Consider changing up the offer or adding new leads to your list.

5. Unsubscribe rate represents the number of unsubscribe requests relative to the number of emails delivered. It is a telling metric that, if notably high, may mean you’re not providing value to recipients, or the frequency of emails sent may need to be cut back. Whatever the case may be, the unsubscribe rate is a critical measure informing businesses about the state of their email campaigns. Pay attention to this metric and adjust your message content and cadence, testing the results to fine-tune your email campaign.

It should come as no surprise that email is destined to keep growing as a primary digital marketing tool this year, as its track record continues to prove it a highly cost-effective channel for targeting both prospects and established customers with relevant messages. When you’re ready to get serious about your email marketing, make sure you put the research in to better understand the metrics discussed in this post as it relates to industry averages, and then over time, your campaign averages. Every business is different – so you can’t expect the same results as another – but the one thing that’s constant in any successful email marketing program is measurement, and applying what you’ve learned.

Integrated marketing and the ability to run seamless campaigns across multiple channels is a skill that’s mastered over time. Like the conductor of an orchestra, the maestro of the integrated marketing campaign unifies the various segments to create a concerted effort in harmony or at least in synergy. As with any type of program or skill set, developing an approach that’s based on experience, testing and refining the results can ensure that any strategy can exist within a framework. So, in this post, we’ll share with you a framework you can use to launch an integrated marketing program that takes into account the processes, the people and the planning. Over time, you can mold the approach to accommodate what you’ve learned as you conduct your own integrated marketing campaigns.

Integrated campaigns: the planning

Whatever calendar cycle your business is on for planning and executing initiatives, start there in terms of planning for campaigns. It could be annually, quarterly or monthly. Take stock of the major business initiatives within the calendar and decide what marketing campaigns could support that. Based on the total marketing budget and the various channels you have available to you, for example, paid and organic search, online video, television and radio, social media, conferences and networking events an others, start thinking about:

• How the primary message will be disseminated not just the channel, but also in what form – graphic, industry report, video, or text.
• What the approach will be in each channel, for example, if paid search is the channel, will you pursue just text ads on the search network or also display ads?
• The offers that will be available and how they play out in the various channels, for example, social versus the web site
• How to create a unified story across every medium that attempts to matches to the customer journey

If you’re a visual person, sketch out these components on a whiteboard, so you can begin to see just how the story will be created taking these components into account.

Integrated campaigns: the people and the processes 

To orchestrate a large-scale initiative, such as an integrated marketing campaign the right people and the right processes need to be in place. As we see it, the four operational keys to marketing campaign success are:

1. Leadership
2. People
3. Progress
4. Adjustment

Let’s look at those in closer detail:

1. Leadership: Just like the orchestra needs its conductor to keep them on track when the performance pressure is on, so do the marketing teams. This leader is the maestro who will push the project along and ensure clarity, accountability and progress. This conductor is not usually the executive sponsor, but a project manager or integrated campaign manager.

2. People: Integrated campaigns involve many people, especially in an enterprise situation, including teams from varying business units. Each individual needs to know his or her role in the big scheme and throughout the entire campaign, and this should be communicated from the top down, starting with the program leader to the team leader and so on.

To put this massive task into perspective, the roles that could be included in an integrated marketing campaign are:

• Creative director
• Content strategist
• Data analyst
• Designer
• Email manager
• Executive sponsor
• PPC manager
• PR manager
• Project manager or campaign manager (often the “leader” role)
• SEO manager
• Site manager or product owner
• Social media manager
• Video media manager
• Web developer
• Writer

3. Progress: Aside from the obvious that progress should be made, progress reporting is key. All tasks associated with each role on the team should have a delivery date and progress should be measured and reported at various points in the timeline.

4. Adjustment: Campaign structure is not set in stone due to the nature of digital marketing, where results are measured quickly and decisions on how to adjust can also be made in reaction. Be sure to communicate results and proposed or actual changes broadly to the entire group, so everyone is on board with an aligned vision.

Integrated marketing can seem intimidating at first, but brands can start small – even if it’s just with two or three channels. Create a test environment where these two-channel campaigns adopt the framework and use a coordinated schedule, record what you’ve learned and apply it to the next round, perhaps adding another channel to the mix. Over time, you will see the benefit of a coordinated campaign that is consistent in message and broad in its reach in the form of improved awareness and response.  

BrightEdge is a company full of success and potential. From the very first minute when I was introduced to BrightEdge, I saw an opportunity to challenge myself while being able to make a true, measurable impact on the business.

Why I Moved - Seizing The Opportunity

At this time two months ago I was finishing up my best month yet at a large, successful SaaS technology company. Conversations were clicking, negotiations were fruitful, contracts were being inked; I was truly at the top of my sales game there, and it felt GOOD and I wanted more. After the high of a very successful month, I took a look back at the accomplishment and something was missing. Yes, I was successful in closing business, and the company was successful and continuing its growth, but I felt that my own personal career growth was lacking.

I wasn’t pushing myself nearly as much as I normally do to grow my skill set, and I’m a motivated and driven person. I felt I had two options: I could comfortably continue on and be successful at the large organization, but I worried about plateauing, or I could start to look around for a smaller and more dynamic company that would put me on a steeper ramp to greater challenge and success. I took the plunge, and here are three reasons why I did so.

1. Company Growth BrightEdge is seeing explosive growth year over year, which is the main thing that drew me to the company in the first place and pushed me to learn more about opportunities here. Because of the size of the company (growing and very agile) and the fact that BrightEdge had doubled to 300 employees and grew to 6 offices globally over the past year, I could only see they had the approach and the drive to keep that success continuing. BrightEdge is VC-funded and continues to secure funding in new rounds due to continued growth – they secured $42.8M in Series D financing just last year. And we’re pre-IPO, which allows me as an employee to invest my time to help the company go public and see the fruits of that new endeavor. This is something not many sales executives get to say.

Opportunity in Chicago

Because BrightEdge is beginning to really grow its Chicago office, this also gave me a unique opportunity to work for one of Silicon Valley’s fastest movers while remaining in the city that I love. I know everyone in the Bay Area is rolling their eyes, but Chicago is pretty wonderful if you can survive the winter!

2. Professional/Personal Growth Honestly, I don’t know if I want to be an individual contributor forever. I really enjoy owning my own business and my own success at this point in my life, but I am also growing to love having the opportunity to mentor others, transfer skills, and help those people succeed. Eventually, I’d like to have the opportunity to direct a team and an office, both from a professional perspective in terms of growing my career and skill set, and from a personal growth perspective. BrightEdge, due to its exponential growth mentioned above, opens the paths for this type of career trajectory much more quickly than an established organization can, just due to that startup agility and mindset. Check out the video below to see just how far you can progress your sales career at BrightEdge

3. Culture You really have to love your work and love those with whom you work. Everyone has had “bad jobs” in the past, and looking back at those in my past, the issue many times wasn’t the work itself but the people. After meeting the BrightEdge team, I knew this was a place that would be an optimal fit for me. I never want to be the smartest person in the room, so I can continue to learn and grow.  Because there are so many ridiculously brilliant people here, you never stop learning and growing. Not only are the people here intelligent and innovative, but they’re a heck of a lot of fun, too.

Even in a sales role, we push through obstacles as a team, win as a team, and celebrate as a team, and that competitive-yet-collaborative mentality helps the company on the whole to be successful. That’s a place I want to be. Leaving my last company was definitely not an easy decision to make. When you’re experiencing success with a company that cares for its people, but may not be able to offer enough opportunity, it’s really hard to make the decision to grow your career and move on. However, after taking that leap of faith, I realize that I’ve made the right choice and ended up at my new home for years to come. BrightEdge is still growing and hiring at a tremendous pace. Seize the opportunity and join me and BrightEdge on their journey.

Demand generation is an essential part of a growing business. In today’s digital marketing environment, deploying a scaled demand operation and revenue creation engine requires a broad team of talent. Specialization of function allows for areas of excellence to develop maximum efficiency and effectiveness.

At BrightEdge our management experience comes from some of the most successful SaaS companies in Silicon Valley, most notably Salesforce.com, so our departments are designed to scale fluidly as we continue to grow at a formidable rate. Demand generation sits at the intersection of sales and marketing, and as the number of team members involved in the B2B purchase process grows - 34% according to the 2014 demand generation survey - so does the need to acquire and develop a multitude of demand generation skill sets.

Demand generation is all about understanding the user journey and understanding how different roles on your team support that journey to becoming a customer. Understanding clearly the broad spectrum of roles in your demand organization will also help a person evaluate their career options and make an effective career plan. Below are 12 key roles and positions essential to the scale and success of a demand-led organization. Note that the positions are also in the order of products rolling into the market to customers.

1. Product Manager specifies what to make: owns the target market, market sizing, gross margin plan, schedule, and value proposition.

2. Product Marketing Manager describes what the product manager made on the web site and in collateral: owns the description.

3. Marketing Acquisition (advertising) gets people to notice and consider the product: owns the leads and the top of the funnel. Often co-owns the website with corporate marketing. Content marketing manager largely fits in this category.

4. Public Relations Manager generates interest in the products, message, and the company with the offline and online press. Social media manager falls largely in this category.

5. Corporate Marketing and marketing communications define and defend the brand: owns the brand, logo, and tagline. Often co-owns the website with marketing acquisition.

6. Inside Sales works the leads created by marketing acquisition to create sales appointments: owns the middle of the funnel.

7. Outside Sales hunts for leads: owns the cold calls and a quota.

8. Account Executive works the leads brought in by inside and outside sales: owns the bottom of the funnel and a revenue quota.

9. Sales Engineer helps with the product demonstration and trial: co-owns closing from the trial.

10. Customer Service, Customer Support, Customer Success supports the customers’ use of the product: co-owns retention and renewal goals.

11. Customer Marketing supports renewal, upsell, and expansion campaigns: owns engagement, renewal, and upsell campaign development, deployment, and tracking.

12. Strategic Account Manager executes the renewal, upsell, and expansion efforts: owns a revenue quota and the retention goal.

If you are interested in a career in marketing and sales, look over the list of positions and match your talents with the primary activity, your personality with what parts of the work you would like to own, and what types of people you like to interact with: developers, marketers, salespeople, press, prospects, or customers. It takes a combination of all the skill sets associated with most of these 12 positions to build a scaled demand engine. If you feel you have what it takes, then join us on our journey as BrightEdge is hiring.