by Fronetics | Jul 3, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Marketing, Supply Chain
Blog aggregation site Feedspot included Fronetics’ blog on its list of the best content for the supply chain.
Fronetics is honored to learn that our blog has been included on Feedspot’s list of the top 75 supply chain blogs and websites for supply chain professionals. The blog aggregation website has indexed thousands of supply chain blogs and pulled out the most popular using search and social metrics.
Feedspot explains its methodology. “These blogs are ranked based on following criteria:
- “Google reputation and Google search ranking
- “Influence and popularity on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites
- “Quality and consistency of posts.
- “Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review.”
We are in excellent company on this list. And we love seeing friends and frequent content collaborators like Argentus and SCM Talent Group among the best of the best as well. These are the places where we turn for supply chain thought leadership, and are humbled to be included.
Fronetics strives to be a leading industry resource for information about digital and content marketing, so it is very exciting to be recognized in this way. Thank you to Feedspot, our contributors, and all of our readers who turn to Fronetics for the latest information about content marketing, social media, and more news and happenings in the supply chain industry.
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![What’s the Difference Between Supply Chain Management and Logistics [Infographic]](https://www.fronetics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Supply-Chain-Managementvs.Logistics.jpg)
by Jennifer Hart Yim | Jun 29, 2017 | Blog, Logistics, Supply Chain
Argentus’ infographic sheds light on the differences between these often-confused functions.
This guest post comes to us from Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and Procurement.
Both Logistics and the wider Supply Chain are vital to how companies run today, but the two are still so often confused. We put together an infographic outlining some of the key differences and points of overlap between them. While it may be an obvious distinction to many pros across the field, there’s still a lot of ambiguity – sometimes within companies, as well – about what constitutes Logistics, and what constitutes Supply Chain Management. As a recruitment firm with over a decade of experience specialized in this area, we figure we’d weigh in!
In short, Logistics is a part of Supply Chain Management that deals with the physical movement of goods for just in time delivery. Supply Chain, as a field, grew out of Logistics in the 80s to encompass a wider strategic consideration of everything that’s involved in bringing a product to market.
Check out the infographic below, where we dive into the topic in more detail! We’ve stepped up our game, if we do say so ourselves.
Logistics vs. Supply Chain Management
We hope you found the infographic informative! Weigh in down in the comments if there’s anything we missed, or more you have to add about the differences between these functions.
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by Fronetics | Jun 28, 2017 | Blog, Current Events, Marketing, Social Media
In June’s social media news, more social media platforms are making changes to benefit businesses who advertise.
June has seen a lot of recent changes in big-name platforms, like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, that will directly impact the engagement between businesses and potential customers. The trend is to create apps that work harder for paid advertisers, increasing brand awareness for businesses and proving their worth through built-in tracking.
Apple has also been working overtime to keep their products competing with the big players in the social media game. New analytics and introduction of Business Chat are keeping the fruit relevant.
Facebook Rolls Out Two New Ad Campaign Tools for Marketers
Facebook delivered two new options for helping businesses grow: Valued Optimization and Lookalike Audiences. The first, Valued Optimization, “works by using the purchase values sent from the Facebook pixel to estimate how much a person may spend with your business over a seven-day period. The ad’s bid is then automatically adjusted based on this estimation, allowing campaigns to deliver ads to people likely to spend more with your business at a low cost.” The second, Lookalike Audiences, helps marketers reach people likely to be interested in a business based on people who have visited their site. Read more
Facebook Expands Click to Messenger Ads to Instagram
Facebook continues to expand ways for users to connect directly with businesses. The Click to Messenger ads have been available through Facebook for a while, and now they’re expanding to Instagram. “Instagram Click to Messenger ads let you reach the people you care about on Instagram and engage with them on Messenger.” Read more
Instagram Makes Sponsored Content More Transparent
Last week Instagram introduced a new “paid partnership tag” that will clearly identify sponsored posts on its app. “Partnerships between community creators and businesses are an important part of the Instagram experience, and a healthy community should be open and consistent about paid partnerships.” This new tag will help users determine when posts are influenced by commercial relationships with businesses. Read more
Apple Rolls Out Analytics to Podcast App
During a podcast session at WWDC, the Apple developer conference, Apple announced that its podcast app will now have the ability to give publishers data that tells them just how much of their episodes are actually being listening to. Apple Podcasts app will allow creators to track aggregated data about when users start, stop, and skip within an episode. This data will give podcasts tangible results that were once estimated from the number of downloads a podcast received. Read more
Apple Debuts Business Chat
Business Chat allows real customer service representatives to communicate directly with users through iMessage. According to the Apple Developer site, customers can use this new feature to “find your business and start conversations from Safari, Maps, Spotlight, and Siri.” The Verge reports that “there will be built-in features like Apple Pay and calendar integration, which will allow Business Chat to facilitate purchases without requiring the user to exit the chat.” Read more
Twitter Experiments with New Promotional Features for Sponsored Live Video
After entering into an exclusive partnership with Live Nation, Twitter is experimenting with new features to help promote events featured on LN. New features like an alert that users can set to remind them of the live event or a branded timeline that will put all tweets about the event on one landing page will help strengthen the relationship between Twitter and Live Nation, paving the way for more partnerships with big brands. Read more
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![The 2017 4th of July Supply Chain [Infographic]](https://www.fronetics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/4th-of-july.jpg)
by Fronetics | Jun 27, 2017 | Big Data, Blog, Current Events, Data/Analytics, Logistics, Supply Chain
U.S. Consumers plan to spend a whopping $7.1 billion on cookouts for 4th of July celebrations.
The National Retail Federation reports that 219 million Americans plan to celebrate the 241st Independence Day. Two-thirds plan to attend a cookout, barbecue, or picnic, spending an average of $73.42 per household on food items, up from last year’s $71.34. That’s a lot of hot dogs!
And what’s a Fourth of July celebration without fireworks? 44% of Americans plan to attend a fireworks show or community celebration. The U.S. will use approximately 285.3 million pounds of fireworks, totaling $1.09 billion dollars. More than 15,000 firework displays will glitter the skies to mark the special occasion.
Recognized as the nation’s largest Independence Day celebration, the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks display attracts more than 3 million spectators live and over 10 million TV viewers. The firework display in Washington, D.C., comes in second with over 700,000 viewers from the nation’s capital.
And due to a number of factors — including strong employment and the low price of gasoline — a record number of people will travel out of town this year to celebrate the holiday. NRF estimates 32.9 million, while AAA estimates it will be closer to 44.2 million travelers.
At Fronetics, we wish you and your family a safe and fun Fourth of July celebration. Here are a few more fun facts to get you into the patriotic spirit.
A 2017 4th of July Infographic for the Supply Chain
(Made with Canva)
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![12 Steps to an Effective Content Strategy for the Supply Chain [Slideshow]](https://www.fronetics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/12-steps-to-an-effective-content-strategy-1.jpg)
by Fronetics | Jun 26, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Learn how to stand out from the crowd with a content strategy that drives profitable customer action.
According to a survey of supply chain and logistics marketers by Fronetics, 86% are using content as a marketing tool. Respondents report using content marketing primarily in order to:
- Increase brand awareness (96%)
- Generate leads (83%)
- Establish the company as an industry leader (74%)
- Engage customers (74%)
By consistently creating and distributing valuable, relevant content, you can attract a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, drive profitable customer action. But how do you know what your audience will find valuable and relevant?
Throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks certainly won’t get your desired results. Since 3 billion pieces of content are shared online everyday, you have to be strategic and thoughtful about your content in order to stand out from the noise (and your competitors). It takes time, careful research, and strategy to build a content marketing program that helps achieve your business goals.
At Fronetics, we specialize in helping supply chain and logistics companies create and execute digital and content marketing strategies. So we’ve learned a few tricks of the trade over the years. For example, did you know that explicitly designating a specific person to lead your content strategy can improve its effectiveness by 40%? Or that documenting your strategy can make it three times as effective?
We’ve put together a quick slideshow specifically for supply chain and logistics businesses who are looking to learn about content marketing and build a content strategy that will be effective in growing brand awareness, generating leads, engaging customers, and establishing their brands as industry leaders.
12 Steps to an Effective Content Strategy will help your business identify the key steps to getting the most out of your content marketing efforts. Download the slideshow to get started growing your business with content!
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by Fronetics | Jun 22, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
Email list segmentation is the one of the simplest and most critical practices to improving marketing email performance.
Marketing emails are an important part of lead nurturing: They can make or break whether a lead becomes a sale. So marketers spend a lot of time and money thinking about how to perfect their messages.
While many marketers focus on better design, higher frequency, or perfect timing as a means of increasing open rates and click-throughs. But, really, one of the best ways to improve the success of your email campaigns is through list segmentation.
And when I say success, metrics like click-through and open rates are part of that. But, there’s more. In fact, marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns.
What is email list segmentation?
Email list segmentation simply means separating the contacts in your database based on certain criteria. For example, you can create separate lists for different buyer personas or for contacts in different industries or sectors.
The more specific you can get with your list segmentation, the more you can personalize the content of your emails — and the more relevant they will be to your recipients (which means they’ll be more likely to engage with them).
Other list segmentation ideas include:
- Demographics
- Company size
- Content downloaded from your website
- Geography
- Purchase history
- Content consumption (which blog posts they typically read)
- Interest level
- Purchase channel preference (online, via sales rep, etc.)
How does it work?
Most CRM or email platforms make list segmentation easy. But how you collect and determine criteria for segmentation is a little more complicated.
Collecting prospect information via forms on your website is one way. You can ask for name, email address, business name, interests, budget, demographic information, etc. Of course, the more fields on the form you require — or even allow for — the more prospects will turn away. It’s a delicate balance of encouraging form submissions while getting all the information you need.
Sales representatives can also enter information about leads as they communicate with them. Also, platforms like HubSpot collect information about contacts’ browsing history and content consumption that can be very helpful in determining what kinds of content they prefer or products they might be interested in.
Once you determine how you want to segment your email lists, it’s important to devise a different strategy for each list. What are your goals for each type of customer or prospect? Based on your existing data, how does that particular persona typically move down the sales funnel? How frequently should they be contacted? Answering these questions will help you build an email marketing strategy for each list that improves your chances of success with each.
What are the benefits?
Segmentation allows you to send the most pertinent content to the right people at the right time. And B2B buyers want and expect relevant content when making purchase decisions.
That sounds obvious, but I bet examples of companies violating this practice abound in your life. For instance, say you subscribe to the vegetarian plan of weekly meal-delivery service. Despite the fact that the company has a very valuable piece of information about your preferences (you’re a vegetarian), they send you a marketing email about upgrading to premium meats. Not only are you probably not interested in this offer — and are maybe even annoyed (or disgusted) by it — it leaves you with the feeling that the company doesn’t understand or value you as a customer.
It’s the same in B2B: 94% of B2B buyers say they chose a particular vendor because they demonstrated the strongest knowledge of the company and its needs. If your shipping business sends an e-commerce cookie company information about a special on shipping reefs and corals, you lose credibility in terms of how well you know and understand that customer.
But recall a time when you’ve browsed a company’s website and received an email shortly thereafter with FAQs about the exact products you were researching. Or, you have been in talks with several businesses about a major purchase, and just before making a decision, one sends you information helping you calculate ROI. That’s the kind of timely content delivery that can sway you in a particular direction.
Hyper-targeted marketing emails will give you the most success with your lead nurturing email campaigns. You’ll deliver the most relevant and pertinent information to the right people at the right time, encouraging them to move down the sales funnel and to make purchases.
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