I’ve been singing the praises of persona development since the day I started at HighRoad and I’m seeing that the market is starting to pick up that same message – I see a lot of conference sessions reference the value and importance of persona development, which is fantastic! Organizations (not just the marketing team), need to know who they’re targeting if they want to be able to market effectively. More importantly, and this is why personas matter, you really need to understand what motivates and drives your target audiences. What are they interested in? How do they spend their day? What are their pain points? How do they consume the information you send them? What information do they consume? Are they extroverts or introverts? Are they likely to respond to social media outreach or do they prefer traditional email? How much free time do they have? Are they Baby Boomers, Millennials or Gen X and does that matter when it comes to promoting your programs?

Marketing automation tools can free up your staff from time-consuming, manual processes, so they can spend that time nurturing quality leads instead.  If you are curious about who has what to offer in marketing automation,CIO has a good article that may help.

Based on the reviews of users from the IT Central Station Community, a comparison is drawn between Act-On, HubSpot, and Marketo.  In no particular order, beginning with Act-On, the valuable features users listed were analytics & reporting, social integration, CRM integration, and the ability to segment visitors based on behavior and lead score.  

Next was HubSpot, which users cited email automation, workflow automation, a social tracking module, and lead nurturing workflows as valuable features.  Last but not least was Marketo, who users listed email drip campaigns, and automated customer outreach from sign-up to upgrade as valuable.  If you're thinking about marketing automation solutions, this comparison will help you start to understand what the marketing automation landscape looks like, who are the software industry leaders and what features you need.

If you are trying to understand what is a good fit for your organization, consider talking to one of our digital marketing experts to provide some starting points and guidance:

In today's world, understanding and implementing digital strategies into our overall marketing plan is a must-do.  Because digital marketing is such a hot topic, we thought we should post this helpful infographic once more.

Our Toolkit of the Month series aims to provide association professionals with methodologies, tools & templates developed by hardcore marketers at Demand Metric. 

We are pleased to announce that two of our partners, Hubspot and BrightInfo, have just released their first joint ebook.  "Personalize or Perish: The Definitive Guide to Segmentation for Digital Publishers" is a free download available to everyone.  Learn how to attract and engage both new and existing readers by personalizing your content.  This ebook contains actionable advice on how to gather user data in order to create dynamic content on your website and in your emails.

When I look at websites I’m often driven by the need to essentially find or do something that solves my pain point. I didn’t really “surf” sites until I got a smart phone, and to be honest, it was a way to kill time while traveling. So it’s taken a bit of a mental shift to be on the lookout for websites that illustrate the examples I refer to during my HighRoad U or Inbound Lunch Bunch sessions. Imagine my delight when I stumbled onto another example of an Interactive Call-To-Action (CTA) that may further inspire association inbound marketers looking to convert those visitors into leads.