Join Steve Robinson and Elizabeth Earin as we explore the movement behind Iterative Marketing as well as the fundamental truths and actionable components that make up the methodology. Each week we will dive into a particular strategy, tactic or concept you can apply to achieve measurable, continuous improvement in your marketing efforts.
Diversity in Personas
When you’re brainstorming and determining personas for your marketing strategy, how detailed do you need to be? In this episode, Elizabeth and Steve discuss the risks and benefits of adding Diversity to your Personas.
Moving From Attribution To Contribution
Attribution Modeling, or the ability to connect a sale with a specific marketing effort, is a hot topic. But the model is flawed. In this podcast episode, Elizabeth and Steve introduce Contribution Modeling, a well-rounded way to measure the ROI of our marketing tactics.
How To Shift Your Organization To Be Persona-Centric
Persona-centric marketing helps organizations realize higher conversion rates and customer retention, but making the shift from product and service marketing to personas is not always easy. In this podcast, we explain what persona-centric marketing is, and how you can overcome the 6 common challenges faced by organizations who try to adopt persona-centric practices.
Why Brand Matters
Today’s episode is all about discovering the impact of brand on your organization’s bottom line. While many companies want to focus their investment on Do-state marketing, it’s actually less expensive to invest in brand and build affinity earlier in the customer journey.
How To Run An Effective A-B Test
A-B testing is the core of experimentation. With the right execution, it not only provides uplift in click-through rate and conversions, but also serves as an audience insight generator. This podcast explores how six things — sample size, random sample, controls, duration, statistical confidence and testing for insight — can make an A-B test effective and beneficial to all departments in an organization.
With Measurement, The Sky’s The Limit
There are four components of effective marketing measurement. This week’s podcast explores how measuring investment, outcomes, attribution and time can help us determine ROI, so we can finally have an answer to our client’s biggest question: “is my marketing working?”
Changing The Relationship Between Sales & Marketing
Changes in consumer behavior have impacted both sales and marketing in positive and negative ways. This podcast explores how sales and marketing must adapt to meet the demands of this new consumer behavior — and gain a new appreciation for each department’s role in the organization.
Everyone Hates Advertising…Or Do They?
Does everybody hate advertising? A Marketing Land article says yes, but a recent study by HubSpot says 68% of consumers are actually OK with it if the message is relevant to them. So why the dissonance? In this episode, we explore why consumers are paying to opt-out of advertising with new technology, and how marketers can combat this trend by transforming their advertising from something hated, to something appreciated.
Deep Dive Into Grow And Give
This is the final episode in our Deep Dive podcast series, which explored the 5 customer journey states. Previous episodes examined See, Think and Do.This episode is all about the importance of personalized content for the end phase of the buying journey: Grow and Give. We will discuss the goals, appropriate content, targeting methods, and measurement for the current customers that comprise the Grow and Give states.
Getting The Most From Google Analytics
Last week we talked about the proper set-up and tools for effective experiments. Since analytics are vitally important to successful experimentation (and essential to Iterative Marketing); therefore, this episode is dedicated to getting the most from Google Analytics. In this episode, we discuss how to obtain clean data, track conversions that will meet objectives, pass information into Google Analytics, and how to pull back out customized reports.
Tools For Effective Experimentation
In this episode we explore the specific tools that are necessary for effective experimentation. Setting up the infrastructure, or template, for which the experiments will be conducted is the first step for successful experimentation. We will also identify what to test, how to measure the data, best practices for analysis and, most importantly, how to communicate the results to stakeholders.
Content Marketing To The Grow/Give State
To see the greatest return on investment, it’s necessary to continually refine our content marketing. In order to boost our efforts, we must understand our marketing objectives and how these differ by journey state. The “Grow” audience includes people that have already purchased our product and are happy. The “Give” audience includes loyal customers that wholeheartedly believe in our brand and are willing to help promote via referrals. In this episode, we explore the different ways to deliver content for a variety of customers and how to successfully optimize and iterate our content for the “Grow/Give” state.
Content Marketing To The ‘Do’ State
To see the greatest return on investment, it’s necessary to continually refine our content marketing. But in order to boost our efforts, we must understand our marketing objectives and how these differ by journey state. This audience includes people that are ready to buy our product or have already completed the purchase. In this episode, we explore the different ways to deliver content for a variety of marketers and organizations and how to successfully optimize and iterate our content for the ‘Do’ state.
Content Marketing To The ‘Think’ State
To see the greatest return on investment, it’s necessary to continually improve our content marketing. But in order to boost our efforts, we first must understand our marketing objectives and how these differ by journey state. In this episode, we explore the best ways to deliver content, measure engagement, improve, and successfully optimize our content to the ‘Think’ state. This audience includes people that are thinking about our product, but aren’t currently in the market to make a purchase.
Content Marketing To The ‘See’ State
To see the greatest return on investment, it’s necessary to continually improve our content marketing. In order to boost our efforts, we must understand our marketing objectives and how these differ by journey state. In this episode, we explore the best ways to deliver content, measure engagement, improve and successfully optimize our content to the ‘See’ audience, the people that are qualified, but aren’t currently in the market, to make a purchase.
The PESO Model
The PESO Model stemmed from a revolution in the public relations community and is often underused by marketing departments. The acronym stands for Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned components. The model can be helpful when trying to organize and recognize promotional opportunities, which includes segmenting all of the marketing channels into discrete groups. It allows marketers to look at marketing efforts through four lenses to see if there are any opportunities to integrate additional channels into a new or existing program.
The Key To Discovering Actionable Insight
“Actionable insights” is a popular phrase that we, as marketers, have heard a lot lately — but what does it mean? Actionable insights are vitally important to the Iterative Marketing methodology but also valuable to overall business success. Documenting and iterating are the keys to the process of discovering actionable insights. “Actionable insights” means that we simplify large amounts of data, put it in a format from which we can interpret information, and formulate a plan for continuous improvement.
The Role of Data in Modern Advertising
Advertising has undergone a modern shift thanks to new emerging technologies and the growing availability of data. This shift is enabling marketers to make smarter decisions with advanced insights into our audiences, as well as attribution of sales and conversions to our marketing efforts. We can now work smarter, not necessarily harder, to narrow our advertising where it works best.
Changing Consumer Habits
AAs consumer behaviors have changed, it is our job to evolve to deliver the customer experience that our customers expect. In this podcast, we outline the four ways we can meet this new challenge and discuss how it affects marketing and advertising at large.
A Deep Dive Into ‘Do’ State
See-Think-Do is a marketing framework for understanding your prospect’s state of being. Because it is customer-centric and aligns well with the Iterative Marketing methodology, we refer to it often. People move in and out of different states as priorities change and they interact with different products and providers. This episode takes a deep dive into ‘Do’ and outlines the goals, content, targeting and measurement for the state.
Continuous Improvement in Paid Media
Marketers can iterate on advertising and other paid media by running experiments and then mining the data to identify the most effective path to the audience.
The Iterative Marketing Report Template
Marketers are always trying to justify their job and get more budget from the C-suites. Learn how to build a report that you can share with internal stakeholders and shine on a personal level within the organization.
Marketing More Effectively With Long-Term Assets
Marketers invest in tools, but there are other revenue-producing assets that we often overlook, specifically: content, brand and data.
A Deep Dive Into ‘Think’ State
In the buyers’ journey, there is an audience segment that is thinking about making a purchase, but is not yet ready to commit. This audience is in the Think state. Marketers can learn how to be a friend to those in the Think state and guide their decision making without pushing the sale too soon.
The Role of Experiments
Experiments in the context of Iterative Marketing serve a bigger function than simply increasing conversion rates. They help us gain insight and knowledge into our target audience. This podcast explores the role of experiments in Iterative Marketing, and shares how marketers can get the most out of their own experiments.
Programmatic Media
There has been a major shift in the way that digital media is bought and sold, which has opened up a lot of new digital targeting opportunities for marketers. While not new technology, not a lot of people are aware of what programmatic is and how they can use it.
New Creative or New Program?
Iterative Marketing programs are not set it and forget it. Learn to identify when it’s time to change ad creative or to launch a new program.
A Deep Dive Into ‘See’ State
Our target market isn’t always thinking about our product or service, but doesn’t mean they should be neglected from advertising. In fact, this “See” audience greases the skids for future conversions. Learn how the “See” audience is worth our marketing investment.
Let’s Talk Statistics
Statistics for marketers is easier than you think, and is one of our most valuable assets in experimentation.
Agile Marketing Vs. Iterative Marketing
Agile Marketing and Iterative Marketing are both growing in popularity. This podcast explains Agile Marketing, how it differs from Iterative Marketing, and how the two solve a lot of the same problems for marketers.
Aligning Digital Media With Your Customer Journey
Marketing personalization doesn’t stop with content – it also extends to digital media. Listen to learn how to target digital media based on your audience’s buyer journey state.
Aligning Content With Your Customer Journey
Marketing personalization goes beyond using a prospect’s name in an email. Learn how to give your audience the personalized experience they want and need by aligning content to your customer journey.
Marketing Have and Have-Nots
In the good ‘ol days of Internet and social media marketing, low-budget marketers could play on an even playing field with big brand budgets – the Goliath’s. Today, that gap is ever-growing between the marketers with the haves and the have-nots. This podcast explores four key changes that contributed to the power shift – and how David can still beat Goliath.
See, Think, Do, Grow, Give
Right now, your customers and prospects are in one of five consideration states: See, Think, Do, Grow or Give. Aligning your marketing to these states not only meets your prospect’s needs – but helps drive the sale.
What’s So Wrong About a Campaign?
Sick of riding the campaign roller coaster? Steve and Elizabeth discuss how marketing programs help us ditch the campaign pitch cycle and remain nimble and responsive to market engagement.
How To Wrangle Your Buyer Personas With a Matrix
We marketers love personas. But how do we know when one persona ends, and another begins? And how many should we have? The Persona Matrix helps us answer these questions.
Tools & Tips For Effective Persona Research
A well researched buyer persona can unify an entire organization around a central vocabulary and target. Leverage these 8 (mostly free) sources for buyer persona research.
Bringing Your Brand To Life
Learn how to create a strong emotional bond with your prospect and customer through living your brand in what you say and do.
Using Brand Vectors To Measure & Align Your Brand
Brand vectors create internal and external alignment of your brand and help you visually differentiate your brand from competitors.
How To Break Down Department Silos
Breaking down silos between Marketing and Sales increases collaboration, reduces duplicated effort, leverages expertise and creates consistency.
Applying Iterative Marketing to Your Existing Marketing
There are four areas to apply Iterative Marketing to your existing marketing, without starting from scratch. They are through Discovery, Setup, Reporting and Iteration.
The 4 Elements of Effective Reporting
Reporting is an effective way to prove marketing’s value up the organizational chart. But many of us don’t know what to report on and choose “vanity metrics,” which often sell our teams short. Listen to learn four topics to add to your reporting.
Designing An Effective Marketing Experiment
Marketing experiments provide valuable data and insights for organizations to improve customer experience and ROI. Learn how to effectively design your next marketing experiment to get the best results.
Marketing Optimization
Optimization puts the “iterative” in Iterative Marketing. If done correctly, their impact compounds far into the future, resulting in great gains for your marketing programs. Learn more about how optimization can result in continuous improvement for your marketing and help connect the dots to ROI.
Mapping The Customer Journey
Customer journey mapping is the documentation of the customer as they move through your sales cycle. Learn how you can use journey maps to improve decision-making for the entire organization. Journey mapping is the third of six actionable components of Iterative Marketing.
Defining Your Brand
Without human touchpoints, brands have become the face of an organization that customers identify with and hold accountable. Join Elizabeth and Steve as they uncover two aspects of brand definition and what organizations can do to improve their brand perception. Brand discovery is the first of the six actionable components of Iterative Marketing.
Persona Discovery
Learn why personas are essential for Iterative Marketers to see the world through their audience’s eyes, target collateral and create a shared vocabulary within the organization. Personas make up the second actionable component of Iterative Marketing.
What Is Iterative Marketing?
Introducing Iterative Marketing, a methodology for continuous improvement. Born from frustration with “big campaign” thinking, Iterative Marketing is a compilation of industry best practices, packaged to work together. Learn about the six fundamental truths and six actionable components that make up the methodology.