A new CMO Council Study reports the following:

• 60% of CMOs think their digital strategies lack innovation
• Fewer than one in five CMOs think their organizations are any good at digital marketing
• 60% say they will be making agency changes this year to address a lack of innovation and dearth of value-added thinking from their outside partners
• Half plan to hire new talent this year, with digital operations a priority

What an opportunity for your company!

Or maybe…it could be bad news if you are one of the companies they are working with that isn’t relevant or providing the innovation they seek?… Read more »

By: Daniel Burstein (Director of Editorial Content at MarketingExperiments Blog)

This article originally appeared on the MarketingExperiments blog. You can also sign up for the Marketing Experiments newsletter to receive more optimization research.

The success of everything you do in marketing — all of your planning, your automation, your copywriting — hinges on one moment …

The Ask.

Also known as the call-to-action.

In today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, we’ll share five common call-to-action errors we’ve discovered in our research, with an example experiment result for each one.

These errors were taken from, and you can learn much more in, the video replay of our “Minor Changes, Major Lifts: How headline and call-to-action optimization increased conversion 45%” Web clinic, written by Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director and CEO, MECLABS, and Paul Cheney, Editorial Analyst, MECLABS.

“Behind every call-to-action there is a perceived cost for taking that action,” Dr. McGlaughlin said. “By either reducing the perceived cost or increasing the perceived value in the button copy, we can generally observe an improved response.”

(Please note: Some samples have been anonymized to protect Research Partner identity.)

Error #1: A call-to-action without implied value

The result: 201% increase in conversions

The value to the customer for taking the requested action in the form on the left is … a sales call?

However, the value for taking action in the form on the right is free access to search a business and consumer database.

Which has more value to you?… Read more »

When designing graphics, there are a few design principles that can make or break the effectiveness of that graphic. This goes for web graphics or printed graphics. In this article, we will go over the need and uses for some of these design principles.

Alignment

Alignment is the arrangement of items in a straight line or in corrective relative positions. Alignment takes a huge role in making your design look amateur or professional. Elements on a given canvas that have no alignment with other elements can make a page look cluttered, unorganized, and messy.

Alignment of two elements that are not close to each other can help create an invisible connection between them. Also aligning elements in a canvas will give your audience a unspoken path in which you can lead their eyes.

White Space (Negative Space)

White space is any portion of a page that is left unmarked. This can include space between graphics, margins, gutters, space between columns, space between lines of type or figures and objects drawn or depicted. A lack of white space can make a graphic feel too cluttered and unorganized as well…. Read more »

I have the pleasure to be the coordinator for MindFireInc’s Trade Shows. Having coordinated tradeshows like Graph Expo, Dscoop, PODi and other tradeshows/events for the last two years and a half for an inc500 software company is always a learning experience and a lot of fun. It’s the highlight of my job. From establishing relationships… Read more »

While email deliverability is an extremely complex topic, there are five things all campaign managers should know: Your results are only as good as your mail file. Garbage in, garbage out. The best lists are organically grown, opted-in house lists of individuals that wish to receive your messages. CAN-SPAM regulations govern your email blasts. You… Read more »

Dscoop7, scheduled for March 22-24, 2012, in Washington DC, is coming up fast! It’s a presidential election year in the U.S. (and many other countries), so I guess we can expect a campaign theme, and indeed, the theme this year is Campaign for Next.

As always, the Dscoop annual meeting is a blend of education and networking opportunities. This year, the session is preceded by an invitation-only event for marketers, designers and creative. The DSee conference was sold out in one day! I am flattered to be allowed to attend, so watch this space for feedback on what some three or four thousand of our marketing and designer friends had to say about the capabilities for advanced cross-media marketing that I am sure many of them don’t even realize exist…. Read more »

The past 2 years have been incredibly fulfilling: I got married, have a baby on the way, and have been working with an incredible group of people developing software for the world’s best clients. I feel incredibly blessed.

In this post, we’re going to focus on the work aspect (not getting married or having a child, but I’m open to any and all husbanding and parenting advice!), and give you a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what we’ve been up to and why we’re excited to share it with you.

It all started with a traffic ticket …

The 2 Million Dollar Traffic Ticket

February 2010. I’m sitting in the world’s foremost idea incubator: Traffic Court.

Awaiting to appear before a judge for a ticket (infraction: speaking with Joe Manos on my cell phone … it’s against the law here in California!), I started doodling what became one of the key building blocks for our new Marketing Platform. Here’s the doodle …

I know it doesn’t look like much, but these sketches led to an idea we believe reduces complexity and provides a compelling framework for how you think about, launch, and manage multi-channel campaigns.

Within a few days of sitting in court, we made the decision to invest a few million in development…. Read more »