Online Marketing News: Google Updates, Email Marketing Insights & Content Marketing Success

 

7 Step Framework Demonstrates Core Elements of Successful Content Marketing Strategies

There is no silver bullet in content marketing, yet there are core, common elements to successful content marketing strategies, says Content Marketing Institute. They’ve shared their content marketing framework to help marketers increase their own chances of success, along with a whitepaper expanding upon each of their seven identified elements. See The CMI Content Marketing Framework: 7 Building Blocks to Success for more.

Businesses Plan to Spend More on Email Marketing in 2013

A new report from iContact found that 56% of businesses surveyed plan to increase their email marketing in 2013. Just 1% said they plan on cutting back. Other key findings from their survey of SMBs with revenue between $1 million and $50 million include:

88% have at least one employee managing email content78% are confident they can maximize the potential of email marketing42% said spam filters preventing emails from reaching subscribers are a problem79% plan to improve their email layout and design

Download the full report from iContact for more insights, or see their corresponding infographic here.

Improvements to Google Analytics Real-Time Reports

Google announced four changes this week to their GA real-time reports, allowing marketers to see more of what is happening on their site at any given moment.

Google Analytics users can now:

Analyze�Events�in real-timeBreakdown real-time by Desktop/Tablet/Mobile trafficCreate shortcuts to your favorite real-time segmentsCompare real-time filtered data against overall real-time data

The team at Google announced, “Stay tuned for continued improvements to real-time, a growing area of importance for your digital marketing.”

Facebook Updates Ads Manager

Facebook announced Ads Manager updates on Tuesday, designed to help marketers more easily identify which user actions drive specific advertising goals. The changes should make it easier to determine campaign ROI, Facebook said. The updates were made in response to advertiser feedback.

Emails with Social Share Buttons have Higher CTRs [Study]

Emails with social share buttons have a 158% higher click-through-rate than those without, according to a GetResponse study. Still, just 29.6% of marketers use them.

Image from MarketingCharts.com

Among those who do, Facebook Share buttons are most popular, with 99% of marketers including them in their email campaigns. Twitter buttons are used by 99%, while LinkedIn buttons are present on 68.1% of emails with social share buttons.

Twitter Revenue Forecast Approaching $1 Billion

eMarketer has had to revise their Twitter revenue forecast, in light of the social media company’s unanticipated success in social advertising. In 2014, Twitter should take in $950 million, according to the latest estimate. One year ago, eMarketer predicted 2014 revenue of $582.8 million for Twitter; in September, they upped their estimate to $807.5 million. By 2015, they say, Twitter’s annual revenue will skyrocket to $1.33 billion.

Coming Up in the @TopRank Community

Tune in to the @toprank Twitter feed Tuesday, April 9th at 2:45pm ET (11:45am PT) for highlights from Lee Odden’s Social Media World presentation, How to Integrate Blogging with Content Marketing that Inspires Action.