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September 28, 2021 03:00 PM by Cole With the world becoming more connected by the day, the frequency with which customers and companies are interacting is increasing. Gone are the days of customer service representatives only handling customer complaints, salespeople only dealing with sales and marketers only making posters or ads. With social media, website chat windows, phone hotlines and more, customers have more ways to ask questions, access information and interact with your business than ever before. This interconnectivity and ease of access means that everyone in your company will most likely be asked a question about your products or services at some point. Read more
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August 26, 2021 by Cole As smartphones reshape the way we interact with the world, video has become the medium du jour for marketers and business owners alike.
The easiest way to accomplish this is by creating a bond with your audience. Does the audience feel something when seeing your latest video? Is an emotion triggered when someone sees your message or an image? If not, you might be getting overlooked, forgotten or even downright ignored. It’s a tough challenge to overcome without an easy solution or decades of best practices from which to draw inspiration. So why not crack a joke? Read more marketing company video how to make videos humor humor in video making videos marketing ROI video video marketing |
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May 19, 2021 by Cole When you begin the process of selecting a marketing automation platform, you might already have an idea of the features and capabilities the platform needs to have. Whether you need it to solve a specific sales role, re-engage customers after information gathering, or distill content throughout your wider network, there will always be a platform that can help you reach these goals. Read more
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May 6, 2021 by Cole In a recent blog, we discussed how to manage your brand and enhance the overall customer experience. Having a well-focused, unique brand is important. Your brand is the overall personality of your business and the promise it makes to customers.
Once your brand has been established, fostering awareness and building up the public’s perception of that brand comes next. Brand awareness is the familiarity and recognizability of your brand with your target audience. Establishing brand awareness is crucial when marketing and promoting your company and products, especially in early stages of a business. Read more |
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April 28, 2021 by Cole Have you ever wondered if your audience is actually hearing what your company is saying? If you think your current marketing efforts are being ignored and are looking for a way to interrupt what has now become the norm, then utilizing video may be the way to go.
According to Wistia, 68% of people say they prefer to learn about a new product or service by watching a short video. Additionally, 92% of marketers using video say it’s an important part of their marketing strategy. Read more |
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April 5, 2021 by Cole At AKC Marketing, we like to talk about the “big brand.” But what is the big brand? Why is a distinctive brand important in today’s marketplace?
Brent Thomsen, Creative Director at AKC Marketing, understands the importance of a brand and how a well-focused, unique brand can enhance the overall customer experience. According to HubSpot, a brand helps distinguish one organization from another. Typically comprised of a name, tagline, logo, brand voice and more, the brand also refers to the overall customer experience. Read more marketing campaign AKC Marketing Brand Brand Management Branding |
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February 22, 2021 by Cole AKC Marketing Automation Expert Amanda Laverman, a multi-touch attribution specialist, explains and explores the importance of multi-touch attribution. Understanding what multi-touch attribution is, how businesses use it and how prospective customers benefit from its use are all covered. Read more
hubspot marketing marketing flywheel multi-touch attribution sales flywheel sales funnel |
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January 29, 2021 by Cole AKC Marketing earned nine awards at the 2020 National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) Best of award show on January 28, 2021. AKC won six first-place and three merit awards. First-place honors were awarded in Advertorial, Direct Mail, Billboard, Virtual Event, A/V Feature and Social Tactic categories. Read more
marketing campaign Marketing NAMA online marketing video marketing |
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January 22, 2021 by Cole Rod Reding, Producer and Editor at REL Productions, has spent decades working in video production. In that time, video technology has changed drastically, as has the mediums of distribution. Rod has been there every step of the way, implementing cutting-edge techniques and equipment into his work.
That experience gives him a unique vision into today’s use of video, as well as some ideas about where video technology will take us in the future. Read more Digital digital marketing ROI Marketing Video video marketing |
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December 14, 2020 by Cole Business owners and marketers alike want to believe their marketing funnel is airtight. But how do we know our funnels are without cracks and leaks?
While you may not be able to test for leaks like you would with a pipe, there are a few THINGS you can test to optimize your marketing, keep your funnel sealed and ensure more people are moving toward a sale. Read more Content Marketing Email Marketing Marketing Marketing Funnel |
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September 28, 2020 by Cole In a recent blog, we touched on Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) when discussing lead magnets. Now it’s time to talk about Quality Leads. There are many ways to gauge Marketing Qualified Leads. Likewise, there are many ways to gauge Quality Leads. We know you’re busy, so we will make this easy. To identify and maintain Quality Leads, we recommend one simple task: Read more
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August 27, 2020 by Cole As an agency, we understand how much data you are sifting through in order to find prospective clients that will turn into customers. While finding the right prospect is a numbers game, you can also use a marketing qualified lead (MQL) system to identify those prospects more likely to purchase your product or service. HubSpot defines an MQL as a lead who has been deemed more likely to become a customer compared to other leads. This qualification is based on web pages visited, what has been downloaded and other similar engagement with the business’s content. The tools employed to help identify and move along MQLs are called lead magnets. Read more
digital marketing ROI email marketing lead magnet Marketing MQL |
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August 6, 2020 by Cole We get it. Trying to catch the attention of a prospective customers gets harder every day. Competing for attention gets exhausting for marketers and customers. That is why you, as a company, need to employ multiple methods in order to grab the attention of your next customer. Another method you can add to your utility marketing belt is storytelling.
Storytelling allows a prospective customer to identify more emotionally with your company, product or service. We say more emotionally because people are already emotional buyers. Telling a good story gets people to stop, read and identify. They might buy, they might not. They may also share your story to their friends. Having a good story jump-starts discussion and get those emotions churning. Storytelling is a tool every business can use. Plus, storytelling can break up the mundaneness of any other type of marketing you are currently doing. Read more Case study Emotional Marketing Marketing Online Marketing Storytelling |
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July 30, 2020 by Cole What was the open rate of your last email? Was it what you were hoping for? If you’re like most email marketers or business owners who rely on email, you check your open rates regularly. For some, panic may set in if every time you send an email, your open rates fall.
You wonder if you’ve lost your touch or maybe it’s the crazy times we’re living in. But what if subscribers keep ignoring your emails— should you stop emailing? Does it mean email marketing is dead? Trust us when we say, email is still working. Think about it—your email address is your ticket to just about anywhere online. Which means you need to figure out why your open rates are tanking— and that’s what we’re going to help you with today. Read more |
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July 23, 2020 by Cole A home page without a story or a reason to stick around could mean your marketing efforts are falling flat. The home page is the hub of your marketing message. If that message is incoherent or mixed, it can be difficult for your salespeople to do their job. A messy home page can also mean your marketing emails won’t resonate with the people on your list.
No matter the status of your home page, there is always room for improvement. Follow these eight critical components of high-converting home pages and transform your site from a quick exit to a mainstay in web traffic. Read more |
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July 16, 2020 by Cole Whether you’re a marketer tasked with writing content for a client or you’re a business owner cranking out your own content, there is a huge mistake you could be making—completely ignoring your brand voice.
If you want a fairly simple way to differentiate your business in an overcrowded, competitive market by just being yourself, then you have to find your (brand) voice. To avoid your marketing content being as boring as a 90-minute college lecture, you want to think of your business or client’s business as a person. People buy from other people, especially people with a personality. Read more |
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July 9, 2020 by Cole On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being not great and 10 being exceptional), how are your content marketing efforts going so far this year? If they aren’t where you’d like them to be, might we suggest incorporating video into your marketing strategy?
If you are already stretched pretty thin and at max capacity, you might be thinking, “what’s the point?” Well, do we have news and insight for you! A whopping 70% of B2B buyers watch videos along their path to purchase. Now, before you go off and create more content for the sake of content, we’ll give you five valuable reasons to make it part of your business’s marketing strategy. Read more |
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July 1, 2020 by Cole When a prospective customer reads your marketing, they need to connect with what they’re reading. This connection will give you an edge when it comes time for that customer to decide. The company that answers the question, “Who understands me the best?” is the company that will more often win the business. Read more
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June 26, 2020 by Cole In Part One of our 15 Engaging Blog Posts You Can Write, we outlined the first six types of posts. We tried to prevent our blog from getting too long-winded, while offering many different ideas for you. Generating content ideas is not always easy and sometimes you hit a roadblock of creativity – we’ve all been there. Read more
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June 16, 2020 by Cole As a business, blogging regularly can get tiresome. Running out of topics and content ideas is very common. Keep in mind that not every blog has to be product focused. Weaving in a mix of employee and customer stories or even industry-related topics can give your blog page a refresh and spread out content. Connect with your audience through storytelling and help the audience grow closer to your business.
Many different topics can be used by your business to attract customers. Using a variety of blog topics will draw in a variety of customers. Read more |