Top 5 Automation Posts 2018

Top 5 Automation Posts 2018

Implementing automation can help supply chain marketers become more efficient and more successful in earning and converting leads. Here are our most-viewed automation posts of the year.

Automation is changing the way supply chain marketers do their job. When properly executed, automation can drive efficiency and reduce time spent on repetitive tasks, freeing up marketers to focus on other priorities.

Marketing automation is the process of using software to complete repetitive marketing tasks designed to nurture sales leads, personalize marketing messages and content, and — in the process — save marketers time and effort. Supply chain marketers are using marketing automation to streamline processes and increase qualified leads.

Jumping into marketing automation can be overwhelming. Utilizing the right software and knowing where to implement automation into your marketing processes will help nurture leads and get you back to more pressing tasks.

[bctt tweet=”Utilizing the right software and knowing where to implement automation into your marketing processes will help nurture leads and get you back to more pressing tasks.” username=”Fronetics”]

Here are our top automation posts from 2018 that define how automating your marketing processes can help your efforts.

Top 5 automation posts 2018

1. Our 6 Favorite Marketing Automation Tools for Supply Chain and Logistics Marketers

The term “marketing automation” refers to a variety of tools used to automate the process of personalizing leads’ interactions with your business. The sheer variety of these tools can sometimes be overwhelming — so we’ve pulled a few of our favorites in the categories of email workflows, social media scheduling tools, and customer relationship management. Read full post

2. Increase Leads by 451% through Marketing Automation

Automation is changing today’s supply chain, and not just because robots and autonomous vehicles are scooting around warehouse floors. Supply chain marketers can use automation to drive efficiency and improve our success rates. Read full post

3. Marketing Automation: Social Media Scheduling Tools

Managing your business’ social media accounts might sound like a simple task — a fun one, even. But once it falls on your plate, it won’t take you long to realize: it’s a lot of work. Social media scheduling tools can make your job much easier — and improve your bottom line. Here are some of our favorite tools and some helpful tips for using them. Read full post

4. 5 Tips for Using Automation in Email Marketing

Marketing automation can help you provide more personalized experiences for your prospects through email. It can also save you a significant amount of time, as you won’t have to create individual emails each time a particular prospect takes a particular action.

But not everything can, or should, be automated or scheduled in advance. As you begin to incorporate automation in email marketing, here are 5 tips to get you started. Read full post

5. Marketing Automation: CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Integrating marketing automation into your CRM strategy can improve efficiency, streamline workflows, and make communications more consistent. Here are a few examples of how CRM and marketing automation can work in tandem. Read full post

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Top 10 Supply Chain and Logistics Posts 2018

Top 10 Supply Chain and Logistics Posts 2018

These are the top 10 most-viewed supply chain and logistics posts of 2018.

Our goal throughout the year is to provide our readers with the latest news and happenings in the supply chain and logistics industry, with a focus on content marketing. We hope to educate and enlighten our readers with industry insight, tips, and trends to stay ahead of the competition.

This year we’ve taken a deeper look at supply chain and logistics companies that have experienced the highs (Google, Amazon) and lows (Tesla, KFC) of running supply chain and logistics businesses. These posts have highlighted how we can all learn a thing (or two) from their accomplishments and, of course, their mistakes.

[bctt tweet=”This year we’ve taken a deeper look at supply chain and logistics companies that have experienced the highs (Google, Amazon) and lows (Tesla, KFC) of running supply chain and logistics businesses. These posts have highlighted how we can all learn a thing (or two) from their accomplishments and, of course, their mistakes.” username=”Fronetics”]

Here’s a look at our most popular supply chain and logistics posts this year.

Top 10 supply chain and logistics posts in 2018

1. 10 Must-Follow Supply Chain and Logistics Blogs in 2018

What are your favorite supply chain and logistics blogs? Fronetics wants to tell you about some of our favorite blogs that we follow. Read full post

2.  Drawing Lessons from Tesla’s Supply Chain Issues

This guest post from Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting examines Tesla’s recent supply chain woes. Argentus also shares the biggest takeaways to help you prevent similar blunders. Read full post

3. Top 3 Logistics and Supply Chain Blogs of 2018

We love hearing what blogs you enjoy reading and find valuable. There are lots of great industry options, so we know it’s not easy to narrow down your favorites. We had lots of great responses, but only Women in Trucking held its spot on our list of the top logistics and supply chain blogs from last year. Read full post

4. KFC Ran Out of Chicken in the UK: What Supply Chain Lessons Can We Learn?

There’s another unfortunate entry in the annals of Supply Chain failures that burst into the wider world of business and pop culture: More than half of the UK’s Kentucky Fried Chicken stores closed because they ran out of chicken this year. Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting examines the lessons we can learn from the restaurant chain’s blunder. Read full post

5. How Google Does Supplier Diversity

In 2014, Google launched a supplier diversity program to ensure that its staff had the ability to search large and small vendors when purchasing products or services. The tool it developed has helped Google employees create relationships with small businesses, defined as U.S.-based companies with $15 million or less in annual revenue and 50 or fewer employees. Google felt these companies often have a specialized and innovative product or service but might never be discovered simply because of their size. Read full post

6. Infographic: Influencer Marketing and the Supply Chain

Influencer marketing is a form of marketing in which marketers identify individuals that have influence over potential buyers and create marketing campaigns and activities around these influencers. Why is this so effective? Because buyers trust influencers talking about your products and services more than they trust you talking about yourself. Read full post

7. Valentine’s 2018 Supply Chain Infographic

Consumers spent a near-record $19.2 billion on Valentine’s Day 2018, up from $18.2 billion in 2017. According to NRF’s annual survey, over half of the country participated (55%) in the romantic holiday, spending just over $140 on average. Read full post

8. Five Go-To Supply Chain Websites

Following leading websites is a great way to keep up with the latest news and information about happenings in the supply chain and logistics industry. Here are our five favorite supply chain websites. Read full post

9. Video: Why Inbound Marketing is Better than Outbound Marketing for Supply Chain Marketers

Marketers are constantly coming up with new and trendy ways to attract leads. With endless platforms available to us, it can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned marketers to know where they need to focus their efforts. Outbound marketing used to be the ‘go to’ for generating leads, but this is simply no longer the case. Marketers across industries have found that inbound marketing has many advantages over traditional marketing practices. Read full post

10. 5 Email Marketing Trends Supply Chain and Logistics Marketers Need to Know

More people are using email than ever before (close to 3.8 billion worldwide). Fronetics works with supply chain and logistics businesses every day, so we have a first-hand understanding of how email marketing can be successful in these industries. Read full post

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How to Use Guest Posting as Part of Your Content Strategy

How to Use Guest Posting as Part of Your Content Strategy

Guest posting can help you build your reputation as a thought leader, grow your contact list, improve your SEO, and expose your content to new audiences.

At Fronetics, we use guest posting as a part of our own — and many of our clients’ — content strategies. Essentially, we partner with a relevant influencer or company and swap content to post on each other’s blogs. It can be a really effective way to reach new, relevant audiences and provide interesting perspectives and voices to keep your core audience engaged.

What’s so great about guest posting?

Guest posting has all kinds of benefits. Every time you post as a guest, you expose your content to a whole new audience. We talk about the importance of exposure all the time when it comes to content marketing. Your biggest asset isn’t your products or services; it’s your expertise. Guest posting helps you establish your brand as a thought leader.

[bctt tweet=”Guest blogs can be a really effective way to reach new, relevant audiences and provide interesting perspectives and voices to keep your core audience engaged.” username=”Fronetics”]

In addition to posting with industry influencers and peer brands, guest posting for larger publications can be hugely beneficial, for obvious reasons. Not only are you introducing your brand and content to a broad audience, you’re associating yourself with an established authoritative source.

By the same token, having other brands author guest posts on your own blog is a great idea as well. When key influencers write for your blog, they bring their audience directly to you, allowing you to tap into a new and relevant set of prospects. Not only that, by inviting peers to contribute to your content, you’re forging and strengthening relationships within the industry.

Guest posting is great for SEO

We’re always talking about how to improve your SEO. One benefit of guest posting that’s often overlooked is that it can significantly improve your search engine rankings.

Search engines use backlinks from other websites, particularly popular ones, as part of their algorithms that determine how search results are ranked. According to online business expert Sarah Peterson, in a guest article for the Huffington Post, “You can use the opportunity of your guest post to include 1-2 backlinks to strong pieces of content you want to rank for.”

Grow your contact list

We all know that email marketing is hugely effective and profitable, if your contact list is strong and effectively segmented. Another often overlooked benefit of guest posting is that it has the potential to strengthen and enrich your email marketing efforts.

Because you’re being exposed to new audiences, both as a guest blogger and when guests write for your blog, you have the opportunity to target and cultivate new leads from relevant sources. Use guest posts as an opportunity to usher prospects to lead generation campaigns on your own website.

Says Peterson, “if you’re not using this marketing strategy, you could be leaving a ton of email subscribers on the table.”

How do you use guest posting in your content strategy?

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Video: When is the Best Time to Send an Email?

Video: When is the Best Time to Send an Email?

Here’s a breakdown of the latest findings regarding the best time to send an email and what we recommend for getting the most of out of your email marketing efforts.

We are all inundated with daily emails. Whether it’s work emails, special offers from brands you love, or straight-up spam email, we all have inboxes full of emails – most of which will never be opened.

But, on the flip side, “email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences, behind colleague recommendations and industry thought leaders,” reports WordStream.

So how do you get your emails to stand out in cluttered inboxes? How do you get readers to actually open — and scroll through — your thoughtfully crafted content?

At Fronetics, we believe there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to what works best for email marketing. In order to be successful, you need to take into consideration:

  • Who is your target audience?
  • What job titles do they hold?
  • What kind of devices do they use?
  • When are they commuting to work?

Taking a look at the schedules and habits of your target audience will give you insight into the optimal times for readers to engage with your emails. Here’s Jennifer Hart Yim, director of strategy at Fronetics, with a look at what we recommend when trying to find your optimal time to send marketing emails.

[bctt tweet=”Taking a look at the schedules and habits of your target audience will give you insight into the optimal times for readers to engage with your emails. ” username=”Fronetics”]

Video: When is the best time to send an email?

Takeaway: Trial and error

As with most aspects of content marketing, there’s no universal answer to the best time to send marketing emails. The only way to truly know what works best for your company is trail and error. You’ll have to test dates and times to find the best time to send an email your target audience.

But keep in mind that there are other factors, aside from date and time, that affect open and click-through rates. You’ll also have to play around with frequency, subject lines, length of emails, and the overall look and feel of your email.

Have you tested your best time to send an email? What worked for your company?

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Marketing Automation Tool: Email Workflows

Marketing Automation Tool: Email Workflows

Email workflows will automatically deliver content to leads at designated intervals, inviting them to take action and helping them to move down the sales funnel.

We’ve written before about marketing automation, and what it can do for the supply chain in term of cost- and time-savings. It’s time to get specific about how you can put marketing automation technology to work for you.

There are quite a few highly effective automation tools (including chatbots). Today we’re going to talk about email workflows.

What are email workflows?

These resource-saving tools consist of a series of emails that automatically send to a user at designated intervals. Based on actions a user has taken on your website, they receive emails relating to their interests — or where they are in the sales process — automatically.

Take this example: If someone downloads a resource from your website, an automated email workflow can be triggered to send a thank-you email within 24 hours. After the initial email comes a series of lead-nurturing emails over the next few weeks, continuing to educate the lead about a subject they are interested in, based on the resource they downloaded.

Why use email workflows

HubSpot reports that businesses using this kind of marketing automation to nurture leads receive a 451% increase in qualified leads. Email workflows work, period.

At Fronetics, we recommend clients create email workflows all the time. It allows them to deliver relevant, timely content to leads through automation. That means a sales person doesn’t have to keep track of when a download occurred and remember to send follow-up emails with lead-nurturing content.

Email workflows let you trigger emails based on any information you have about your leads, so you can send the ideal message at the ideal time. Here are some ideas of email workflows you can try:

  • Topic workflows, triggered by page views or content offer downloads
  • Lead-nurturing workflow, triggered by top-of-the-funnel conversions
  • Re-engagment workflow, triggered when a contact has been inactive for a while
  • Upsell workflow, triggered by past purchases
  • Blog subscriber welcome workflow, triggered when someone subscribes to your blog

By taking the time to create thoughtful email workflows on the front end, you will save your team a lot of time and effort during the sales process. It’s this kind of marketing automation that will streamline your sales and marketing efforts, freeing you up to complete other important tasks.

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