28 Feb 2019
Best Practices, Marketing Automation Permalink

Marvel Marketing Minute – Don’t Forget About Time Zones!

February 28, 2019

“What time zone is this?”

It’s an important question to know the answer to when you land in a new place, and it’s also important to know the answer to when you send an email to your audience. Time zones can be tricky. Some countries observe daylight savings, while others do not, and the dates are different, too.

In 2018, our team was running a global program from September to November, with several weekly webinars across several regions. We had conventional reminder emails in Marketo that were pre-scheduled to send 30 minutes before the start of the webinar. So for a webinar starting at 10:00 am, we sent out a reminder email at 9:30 am. Everything felt timely until the last week of October, when we thought we made a mistake on the scheduled time of the reminder email. Instead of sending 30 minutes prior to a webinar in Europe, it sent 30 minutes into the webinar.

What happened?

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25 Feb 2019
Best Practices, Entrepreneurship Permalink

Bogged Down by Details? Here’s a Superhero’s Plan for Super Career Growth

February 25, 2019

It’s been three years, and you are still the Marketing Operations manager at your company. You’ve gotten good, I mean, really good at your job. Your templates are flawless, you’ve reduced turnaround time by 70%, and your database is so clean you can eat tomato soup out of it. You’re in a good place, but you’re in the same place.

Meanwhile, everyone else around you seems to be doing things. How did Josh the SDR transition to become a Customer Success Engineer? When did Wendy the intern become Head of Brand? Sam left to start his own company?! (Who took the Honolulu Cookies that I left on his desk?!)

When your job requires you to hyperfocus on the details, it can be easy to get lost in the day-to-day that you forget to focus on your own self growth.

This has been one my biggest challenges, and one I’m constantly working on. Over the past few years, I’ve picked up a few best practices to shake me out of my tunnel vision and help me refocus on my own personal and career growth.

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14 Feb 2019
Best Practices, Content, Marketing Automation, Marvel Marketing Minute Permalink

Marvel Marketing Minute – Making Your Audience Feel All the Feels

February 14, 2019

St.Valentine’s Day: when lovers express their affection with greetings and gifts. It’s really all about feelings—warm, fuzzy, kind. It’s the holiday known by its overwhelming use of hearts, flowers, chocolates, and warm colors. Hallmark, Hershey’s, and many others have supported this vision to expand on these heartfelt emotions.

As marketers, and leaders, our job is to make people feel. When I was at Nordstrom, my role was to make the store feel a certain way. Each department had what amounts to a vision board and a persona that we targeted.  We wanted that forever-35 or super savvy funky girl to feel comfortable in her “space”. Physical space makes sense for feelings, right?

Now I sit in the digital world, which is far more vast than any before. We have the ability to reach more people, maybe more easily. But the responsibility for how they feel about us hasn’t changed.  

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11 Feb 2019
Marketing Automation Permalink
People Making Hands in Heart Shape Silhouette Sunset
People Making Hands in Heart Shape Silhouette Sunset

Half a Dozen Reasons to Love Marketo’s Default Programs

February 11, 2019

As a Marketo Consultant, I have seen too many incorrect uses of program types. Marketo offers a handful of program types, and to make it even more confusing, each type can have a different program channel. Understandably, selecting the best type of program to use for your marketing campaign may not always be the easiest decision to make, especially when your instance does not have program templates to utilize.

In many cases, I have found that the programs that do not function as intended often turn out to be the programs that should have originally used the default type. They instead were launched as either an Engagement, Event, or Email Program, causing unnecessary headache.

If you’re stuck on choosing the best program type for your marketing campaign, here are 6 reasons to go with the default type:

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04 Feb 2019
Brand Awareness, Content, Lead Generation Permalink

Did You See All of Those Big Content Marketing Lessons During Super Bowl LIII?

February 4, 2019

The end of football season is officially upon us. If you’re a New England Patriots fan, you’re probably exhausted from celebrating, while all other fans are busy saying “wait til next year.”

In between all of the action on the field, did you notice that there were some big content marketing lessons during Super Bowl LIII?

Here’s how you can use America’s most-watched sporting event to your content marketing advantage.

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31 Jan 2019
Content, Marvel Marketing Minute Permalink

Marvel Marketing Minute – Great Blog Post Ideas are Only a Click Away

January 31, 2019

No matter how much thought leadership you’ve established, there are always going to be days when writer’s block creeps into your head and prevents you from thinking of any great topics to write about.

As a writer, I know how frustrating this can be. After all, your audience is counting on you for expert insights. Plus, the competition out there is fierce. You don’t have the luxury of writing about something too generic or too boring to make an impact.

Fortunately, great blog post ideas are only a click away.

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28 Jan 2019
Additional Resources, Marketing Automation Permalink

How I Found a Lead Engagement Solution That Doesn’t Exist in Marketo’s Product Docs

January 28, 2019

A client recently asked me to setup an entry smart campaign for an Engagement Program. It sounded simple enough, until she explained how time-sensitive she needed this lead flow to be.

Here’s how she wanted it to work:

Step 1) A new record is created in Marketo, which triggers the entry smart campaign.

Step 2) The Welcome email (Email #1) is delivered immediately after the record is created.

Step 3) The record is then added to the first stream of the engagement program to receive the first email cast (Email #2) the next day, and only the next day.

And that’s where the challenge came from.

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