Intended Consequences

After almost four decades, I believe the best choice for another shot at a conversion is still that quaint old communication medium: email.

Email still can't be beat for rich content, for conversations that feel one-to-one, and for getting another shot at a future customer. It's the original social media platform.

Liz Willits is a self-professed email marketing nerd, and the Senior Content Marketing Specialist at AWeber, one of the 'OG; email services. She has worked with some of the most successful marketers in the world to help them with their email marketing strategies.

Liz doesn't think you're sending too much on email, and she's got the data to prove it. If we're not sending too much on email, then what's keeping our email from being more productive? Listen in to hear her take.

Resources and links discussed:

• Connect with Liz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-willits/
• Learn more about AWeber: https://www.aweber.com/
• 30-day Trial of AWeber: https://www.aweber.com/order.htm
• AWeber Smart Designer: https://www.aweber.com/email-templates-smart-designer.htm?utm_source=awblog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=smartdesigner&utm_content=blogcontent092619smartdesignerannouncement
• Follow Brian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences: https://conversionsciences.com/

"CMOs are abdicating their strategic position in their businesses."

Just when I was marveling at how much CMOs really must do for their brands, Laura Patterson, President of VisionEdge Marketing, said the above statement that stopped me in my tracks.

Laura has been focused on performance marketing and the proper use of data since before it was "cool," and if anybody knows what's going on with CMOs, it's her.

A few weeks later, I was on a panel that brought up the Fornaise Marketing Group study. This study states that of the 1,200 CEOs polled, 80% of them did not trust and were not impressed by the work done by marketers. By comparison, 90% of them trusted their CIOs and CFOs.

I did some additional research and found more incriminating news. Forrester recently reported that "dozens" of major brands had eliminated the CMO position altogether, brands like Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg's, Taco Bell, and Netflix.

I wanted to get to the bottom of this. Was I part of the problem, focusing on just one channel? And why does Laura believe CMOs are losing their seat at the table in the c-suite? Listen in to find out.

Resources and links discussed:

• Connect with Laura: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurapattersonvem/
• Learn more about VisionEdge Marketing: https://visionedgemarketing.com/
• Check out the Fornaise Marketing Group study: https://www.fournaisegroup.com/ceos-do-not-trust-marketers/
• Follow Brian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences: https://conversionsciences.com/

"Marketing needs to generate more leads," says sales.

"Sales needs to follow up on the leads we're sending them," says marketing.

Sales and marketing: two functions that are critical to a business's success. And from the first time something was sold, sales and marketing have worked independently.

This gulf, this canyon, this gaping sinkhole between sales and marketing has been around for a long time. That's where Chris Wallace (@ChrisWallaceIVG), Co-Founder and President of marketing consulting firm InnerView, comes in.

In this episode, you'll hear Chris' solution on how to bridge the canyon between your marketing and sales teams. Listen in.

Resources and links discussed:

• Connect with Chris
• Learn more about InnerView
• Check out the brand transfer score blog
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

People like funnels because they provide us with some sense of progress in our marketing efforts, but the marketing funnel is under attack, especially in the B2B lead generation space.

Carman Pirie (@pirie) is the co-founder of Kula Partners, an agency built to help leading manufacturers digitally transform marketing and sales to deliver more leads, close more prospects, and grow their competitive edge.

The solutions that purport to step into the funnel's place come with their own baggage. The more interactions with someone, the more likely they are to be a prospect, right? However, this approach treats the funnel more like a swarm of flies. People seem to swarm around our content until, finally, and unpredictably, they qualify for a call.

Carman believes there's something better than a funnel or a swarm, and his agency delivers that something better.

If digital marketing is a swarm, how is a swarm of bees different than a swarm of flies? Find out from Carman on this episode of Intended Consequences.

Resources and links discussed:

• Connect with Carman
• Learn more about Kula Partners
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

Having a true understanding of your target customer is the first step in building an effective marketing plan.

How are they spending their time? Are they able to use the time they have to focus on their area of expertise? And do they have an interest in doing even better work?

Come to think of it, we could ask these same questions of ourselves. It's a full-circle approach that leads to better clarity about our target audience, enabling a more robust and focused marketing strategy.

On this episode of Intended Consequences, Josh Thomas, Director of Marketing at Outbound Engine, shares how these three pillars inform their marketing strategy while also serving as the marketing solution for the customers.

Listen in as Josh breaks down the dichotomy of marketing Outbound Engine's marketing software solution.

Resources and links discussed:

• Connect with Josh
• Learn more about Outbound Engine
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

There is a ceiling on your conversion rate. It's not your price. It's not your copy. It's not your form.

It's eating your website from the inside out. It's causing your SEO to atrophy. It's causing your paid search placement to drop. It's causing your visitors to bounce, and it's only getting worse as mobile traffic grows.

What is the ceiling on your conversion rate? It may be....your page load time.

On this episode of Intended Consequences, Lukas Haensch, founder of Pathmonk and former Google performance analyst, is bringing load time down to a level that we can all understand.

Listen in as Lukas discusses how to diagnose your site and some tactics to ask your tech team to implement to break through the ceiling.

Resources and links discussed:

• Run a free WebPageTest report on your site
• Check out this Google Car-Buying Process article Lukas mentioned
• Connect with Lukas
• Learn more about Pathmonk
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey

Learn more about Conversion Sciences

Mobile best practices don't really exist. Every audience is different, and Intended Consequences host Brian Massey has the tests to prove it. What works for one business doesn't always work for others.

In this episode, you'll hear design ideas for your website's mobile call-to-action buttons, so you can test them and discover what works.

How can mobile call-to-action buttons increase conversions? Can you place more than one CTA per mobile page? What are the top placements for these buttons? Brian answers these questions and more on this week's episode.

Resources and links discussed:

• Check out Conversion Sciences' blog on Mobile CTA Buttons
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

We're told terrifying things: that people have the attention span of a goldfish, that Millennials don't read, that we only have 8 seconds to make our point. No wonder we're confused about how to communicate through copy.

However, the words we use to establish our value and persuade visitors to take action can be tested. Data to the rescue!

Olivia Ross (@ortdesign) is the Director of Conversion Rate Optimization at Directive Consulting. She is a designer turned conversion optimizer who believes that copy is at the core of any great customer journey.

How does Olivia increase conversion rates and ensure landing pages are optimized to succeed? Listen in.

Resources and links discussed:

• Follow Olivia on Twitter @ortdesign
• Learn more about Directive Consulting
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

As a customer, do you really want to create an account for every single website you interact with? Absolutely not.

On the other hand, you want online retailers to know who you are. Having a guest checkout is one way to keep people from leaving your ecommerce site before they buy. This is also why a website without a guest checkout is regarded as a "conversion killer."

In this episode, Intended Consequences host Brian Massey (@bmassey) dives into how you can test and implement guest checkout tactics to reduce cart abandonment, grow ecommerce sales and conversion rates, and have your customers actually complete the purchase.

Resources and links discussed:

• Check out the full article here
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

Lance Loveday (@loveday) is the founder and CEO of Closed Loop, a digital advertising agency that specializes in paid media management.

As an optimizer by nature, digital marketing comes naturally to Lance. He's analytical but also creative - he uses his left brain and his right brain.

In this episode of Intended Consequences, we discuss the tough questions to ask when bringing on external resources to solve your most important problems. Listen in as we explore how to find an agency relationship that gives you a competitive advantage.

Resources and links discussed:

• Follow Lance on Twitter @loveday
• Learn more about Closed Loop
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences