What I Read – January 11, 2019

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Sales and Marketing Lessons from the Top 100 SaaS Companies of 2018: If you’re running a small business, you may be wondering what you have in common with the top 100 SaaS companies in the world. The answer is – more than you may think! Marketing is a two-way street; sometimes the things that small businesses test and learn trickles up to the bigger brands, and sometimes the lessons learned by the biggest companies can benefit even the smallest business. One of the biggest shifts identified in this article is the rise of conversational messaging, or the use of messenger and chat services. (No surprise there, since the article was written by Drift, an on-site chat bot provider.)


The Beginner’s Guide to Google Search Console: Google Search Console takes you a step beyond Google Analytics and gives you insights into how search engines are using your site. You’ll get an understanding of what you can do on your website to improve your performance with search engines. I admit, I don’t do as much with search console as I should, but this article reminded me to review the results more often! (This article is from Yoast, a leading expert on search engine optimization and search performance for WordPress websites.)


How to Deal With the Blasphemy of Email Unsubscribes: The average unsubscribe rate for email marketing is 0.5% – so if you’re below that, then you’re in good company. But once in a while, to every email list, an unsubscribe must fall. The top reasons for email unsubscribes (according to MarketingSherpa) are: 
1: Overloaded Inbox
#2: Irrelevant Content
#3: Too many emails from this company specifically

So, what’s an email marketer (that’s you!) to do? Create a preference center that allows readers to manage how many emails they get, and which emails they are. (Yes, this may mean more work for you in creating multiple types of emails!) You can also work to increase your relevance – make sure your emails, from the subject line to the content and the call to action – are all interesting to your readers. Want to know more? Check out these tips from the Content Marketing Institute. 

Why Did My Pinterest Monthly Viewers Decrease? If you're a Pinterest user, you may have noticed that your monthly viewer numbers can ebb and flow like the tides. But just like page views mean very little if you're not getting conversions, your monthly Pinterest viewers mean very little in comparison to the traffic that your site is getting. In this article, Tailwind shares several tips you can use to not only increase your Pinterest monthly viewers, but your engagement as well!

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What I Read - 11 Jan 2019