During my time here at HighRoad, I have attended a lot of association events here in the Washington, D.C. area. At those events, I have been fortunate to meet many smart people in the technology arena. These people are looking to change up the technology game and use terms that encourage a new way of thinking. Here are some buzzwords I hear floating around when I am out and think are worth a deeper look.

A large portion of our marketing strategies are digital today because that's where our consumers are.  There are many options available when choosing which digital channels to invest in.  It can be difficult knowing which channels will best serve your organization.  The infographic below identifies five key areas for investment that you should be focusing on this year.

I have heard many times this year from either clients or prospects that they are looking for a CRM and so a Marketing Automation platform isn’t really needed. So I went searching for reasons why this isn’t true and why it is better if they are together.

Email is one of the most powerful tools you can use to reach consumers.  According to research by The Radicati Group, there are over 2.6 billion email users today.  By the end of 2019 that number is expected to increase to over 2.9 billion or over 1/3 of the world's population.  In addition, email is the preferred channel for brand communication among consumers.  Email also delivers a higher return on investment than any other digital marketing channel because with email you are targeting people who have opted in to receive your communications.  This is why it is so important to invest time and resources into enhancing your email to be the very best they can be.  Our partner, Litmus, has recently published "The Ultimate Guide To Email Optimization & Troubleshooting".  This guide is a comprehensive look at optimizing every part of the email creation process.  It lays out the steps needed to create email campaigns that your audience will want to engage with.