Front Porch Marketing is now 12 years old, thanks to you. What are our marketing take-aways from the past 12 years? We value your support and confidence in us over the years! You and your brands are our jam.

Marketing Take-Aways to Help Your Business Grow

Reflecting back on client trends and opportunities, on our pearl anniversary, we share common pearls of wisdom we saw at the beginning and continue to see today. We hope these marketing take-aways spur some thinking for you!

1. DIY Marketing

It only gets a brand so far. And, once your brand is established and has credibility, DIY marketing is no longer good enough. Time to take your garage band to the main stage. Hire a professional or firm.

2. Hiring One Marketing Person to Do All the Marketing Things

There are only a handful of unicorns on the planet that can do all the things marketing. If you go this route, know they need support. A marketing generalist isn’t your graphic designer, copywriter, webmaster, etc. Give them the resources they need to do their jobs.

3. B2B Websites

We hear from business owners their websites aren’t a priority and aren’t a sales and marketing tool. Not true. What we see most often is that you aren’t closing the sale or getting to the next round of meetings because you are getting the veto vote when potential clients go to your website to validate your credibility. Important marketing take-away: your website is your virtual office. Optimize it!

4. Marketing Take-Away for CEOs, C-Suite Executives or Managing Partners

Your role is strategy, operations, finances, and managing people. We have experienced too many times when you want to get too far in the weeds managing marketing. At that point, bottlenecks happen and marketing doesn’t happen at its best or consistently.

5. Brand Architecture

Without brand architecture, your branding is inconsistent. Define your brand mission, personality, positioning and affiliation. Let all things marketing flow from there. This becomes the filter and guidepost for branding and marketing strategy as well as execution.

6. Shiny Objects

You have Salesforce, but your team isn’t utilizing it. Then you get Hootsuite and ZoomInfo and, and, and. Stop right there. Marketing operations take-away: Make sure whatever technology you currently have is being utilized to its fullest. Then, if needed, build upon that with other tools.

Marketing Take-Aways to Take You Through the Next 12 Years

Cheers to you! Thank you for trusting in us, believing in us and getting us to our 12^th anniversary. Without your support, we wouldn’t be rockin’ on the Porch today and lovin’ every minute of it. We hope these 6 marketing take-aways will be helpful for your business as we grow together over the next dozen years!

Whatever your industry, you can no longer afford to ignore the importance of optimizing your website for mobile experience. Google recently revealed that more searches take place on mobile devises than on desktop computers in 10 different countries, including the United States and Japan. That means failure to optimize your website for mobile could leave you with as much as 30% fewer conversions!

How to Increase Your Mobile Conversion Rate

So, where do you start? You’ll need to decide whether your website will be responsive. This means it will automatically adjust based on whether the visitor is on desktop or mobile. Or if you’ll have a separate, mobile-friendly site you direct customers to. Regardless of how you get them to your site, designing your web pages with mobile users in mind is key to avoiding abandoned carts and a high bounce rate.

Optimize Your Website’s Bounce Rate with UX

A ”bounce rate” refers to the “percentage of people who visit [your] landing page and then ‘bounce’ without converting on a form or making a purchase.” Here you want a low number. Design is key to keeping potential leads and customers on your page for as long as possible. HubSpot completed an experiment by re-designing one of their content landing pages, placing an emphasis on UX design, and saw their bounce rate decrease by an average of 27%!

User-focused pages designed with mobile in mind tend to focus on simplicity. Good UX (User Experience design) can help. If a form is too long, there’s too much text to read, or the physical navigation of a page is overly difficult, visitors are likely to become frustrated and leave the website altogether. Poorly formatted pages are also more than aesthetically displeasing, as they tend to feel less reputable than their well-designed counterparts.

Safety Optimization Keeps Visitors On Your Site

It’s important that visitors feel safe while exploring your site. “Mobile users are more likely to have their passwords, app login info, and financial details sorted on their phones,” making them extra vigilant about the websites they visit. Optimize safety on your website. Make your website secure with HTTPS and displaying trust badges. This will put users’ minds at ease. Further, payment method mistrust results in 19% of customers abandoning their carts. If you don’t already make use of e-wallet payment methods like Android Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal, consider adding them to your payment offerings.

With mobile traffic contributing to the highest percentage of global web traffic, businesses need to optimize their online presence for mobile use. The information here will get you started on the right track.

Front Porch has currently four clients, both business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C), with paid digital media campaigns ads and paid social media running. These clients are across different industries from financial and non-profits to insurance and ecommerce. These clients’ marketing strategies include paid digital media advertising because it works for them. We recommended integrating your digital marketing with your brand strategy as part of your overall marketing plan.

Maximizing A Digital Media Budget

Our digital ad philosophy is to consider what formats deliver the maximum opportunities possible for the budget available, to an audience most likely to be interested. This approach maximizes the resources of our clients.

Here is a sampling of paid digital media advertising tools that we are using currently to serve our clients in this space:

• Social – Ads served on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to build awareness, build relationships with the audience, and drive traffic to a website
• Digital Banner Ads – Ads served through browsers and in-app to build frequency and drive traffic to a website
• Streaming Audio – Ads served within music and/or podcast content cross-device, including smart speakers

How We Determine A Plan’s Effectiveness

So, what is the predicted ROI of a paid digital media advertising campaign? When the campaign is for business to business, not an “exit now for cheeseburgers”, it is trickier to predict. But this is how we view the situation, and read our analytics.

Here’s an example for a paid digital advertising campaign for a service business client of ours. Our standard average CTR (click-thru rate), which is the number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of times it is shown, is typically .03-.05% for digital ad campaigns. (Social and Native can trend higher with more mobile impressions than Banner Ads served computers.)

So a digital media plan with about 1MM impressions per month would generate 300-500 clicks. These are the customers that click and come to our client’s website. But, the bounce rate can be high in the 90%. Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. Thus with 300-500 clicks, this leaves 30-50 quality prospects per month. Which is a fantastic number for our service client.

If you’d like to know more about how a paid digital media plan might work for your business, just ask!

First Job Lessons to Remember

My youngest kid just started his first job. Having a first job means experiencing some serious adulting, and it comes with many lessons learned. And a lot of these lessons are ones that you can keep with you for your entire career — from intern to CEO.

Remember that book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”? The lessons learned in your first job are kind of like those kindergarten lessons. Be thoughtful and kind to everyone. Do a good job at every task. Be helpful. Be on time. Simple stuff, really, but foundational to having a good work experience in every job you’ll ever have.

Learning the Ropes

My 16-yr-old son is learning a whole new set of adult-life rules of employment. From me, from his new boss, from his co-workers. And from his fluffy charges: he works at a doggy daycare. That boy loves dogs more than people, so I am thankful that he has this particular job as his first job. He is passionate about caring for dogs. He texts me pics of his furry friends during his shifts with their names and some anecdotal cuteness they’ve just accomplished.

My son’s first job reminds me often of MY first job (not that I took care of dogs). But I did something I loved too. I took care of books, my passion. I shelved books in the Kansas City Kansas public library after school and most weekends. For an introvert who was already plowing her way through the entire science fiction section of the library anyway, it was a dream come true to work there. I checked out all the new releases first. I could put books on hold when I saw them come in. So I never missed out on reading the lastest and greatest. And did I mention that I loved putting things in alphabetical and Dewey Decimal System order?

Big Picture Lesson: Do Something You Love

Having a first job is one of the first times that you experience interacting and getting along with people who are not your family or school mates, on a regular basis. You are all working together toward a common goal. That’s something to remember. Whether that’s stacking boxes in a warehouse, flipping a burger, walking a dog or shelving a book, you are now a part of a team. You can take pride in doing a good job not just for yourself, but for the team. The feeling of a shared mission is one you’ll take to every job you will ever have, and use for inspiration.

Best Job Lesson: Know your worth

As a teenager, the best part of your first job is you are getting paid to do this! Earning an hourly wage — large or small — definitely makes you focus more, and work harder on the task at hand. You are considered helpful and sometimes even an expert at SOMETHING! So much so that they want to pay you for your knowledge or your handiwork! The realization of that first paycheck moment is your first glimpse into your ability to build skills to create value. With every job, pat yourself on the back for your next pay raise, or promotion — you’re doing great!

Use your first job to enjoy any job

As you grow in skills and get higher paying jobs, remember to savor your accomplishments, and the fact that someone wants to pay you to do something you already love doing! Remember the work friends that you’ve made and kept even when you’re no longer working together. Think about that new skill you learned, and then fell in love with and became an expert at doing. And how much that made you feel smart and valuable.

Sometimes work can feel like a grind, but when you look at your job through your 16-yr-old eyes, maybe what you’re doing is actually pretty cool. And look how far you’ve come!

There are countless benefits to automating your social media efforts. But who is best served by these services and what are best practices when it comes to using them?

Social media automation is “the process of reducing the manual labor required to manage social media accounts by using automation software.” It goes beyond simply scheduling your posts ahead of time to include content creation, customer service, and analytics reports.

Automating your social media processes reduces the time your team spends on repetitive tasks, decreases response times to customers, optimizes your posting schedule, and boosts engagement. It’s important to note, however, that social media automation is not the same thing as a social media strategy. In fact, automating your social media channels without a robust strategy in place can actually hurt you in the long run.

Be sure your content sounds “human,” even if it’s automated.

First, you’ll also need to be prepared to edit, cancel, or change planned posts. If events or trends warrant a response from your brand, be flexible. Next, make sure your posts are platform specific. In addition to different image display ratios and word count allowances, your audience’s expectations will also vary from platform to platform. Finally, you’ll need to customize your content or work with an automation tool that does it for you.

If you have a strategy in place and you’re aware of the potential pitfalls of automation, it’s time to decide what features will best serve you. Do you manage multiple accounts or produce a lot of content? It might be worth investing in a scheduling and publishing platform that will identify the best times for you to post make the publishing process more efficient.

Automating your basic customer service features

If you often interact with your customers and clients over social media, consider automating your basic customer service features. You can provide automated responses to questions. Automate “What are your hours?” Then, standardize your “welcome” message when you gain new followers.

There are an ever-increasing number of automation services and platforms out there. How can you find the right one for your business? Start with three basic questions:

1. What social platforms do you use most often?
2. Which automation features are you most interested in?
3. What is your budget for automation?

Your answers to these questions will help structure your search for the right automation platform. So start by looking at the large platforms, like Hootsuite and Buffer, and then seek out smaller service providers as necessary based on your needs. Got questions? Give us a shout!

Welcome Lauren, our newest “Rock Climber” is a welcome addition!

It’s time to welcome a new team member — Lauren Allen — to the Porch. She’s a graphic designer and photographer. We love adding members (and their fun rock-based titles) to our team, and we’re so excited to introduce you to Lauren Allen. You can read about her on our team page, and today, we’ve asked her a few questions about her perspective on graphic design, so you can get to know her better. And then you can send her a big “howdy!”

What is the biggest misconception about design today?

That anyone can label themselves as a graphic designer because they can make a graphic with canva. 

What advice would you give your younger self, Lauren?

Love yourself, and be kind to people. You are beautiful.

What is one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned so far in your career?

Not everyone will like your style of design but as long as you are proud of your work, you will excel.

What does good design look like?

Good design is making something that the client can be happy with and proud to show off. 

If you could be anywhere in the world right now where would it be?

I’d love to go to Japan to experience the culture and have great food!

If you could go to dinner with one person living or dead who would it be?

My grandma on my dad’s side. I never met her but apparently, we are very similar and I’d love to see if that’s true. 

Describe Lauren Allen in 3 words:

Kind, Funny, Honest 

Tell us about a major milestone in your life?

I finished my cleft lip journey 4 years ago. It took about 20 years from multiple surgeries and a lot of dental work, to complete it. 

How would you describe the culture at Front Porch Marketing?

The culture seems very inviting and warm. Seems like a cool group of people!

From your perspective, how does Front Porch Marketing differentiate itself from other marketing companies?

Front Porch differentiates itself by making the working environment super collaborative and easy. Everyone is always open to help or giving an opinion which is hard to find in other marketing companies. 

What is a fun fact about you?

I used to do Japanese theatre in middle school called kabuki.

Oh, Marketing. How Do We Love Thee?

In honor of Valentine’s Day today, we wanted to share some of the things that we absolutely LOVE about marketing. We cover many aspects of marketing in our day-to-day business with clients. We use tried-and-true marketing strategies and tactics that are the bedrock of a solid marketing plan. And there are also trends that we love, so we take advantage of those for our clients as well.

These Marketing Things Are Both Tried-and-True and Also On-Trend

Incorporating these marketing things (strategies, tactics, platforms, approaches) in your business of marketing for a client, is a win-win. First, your clients see results. Then, you look smart. And finally, you’re both successful at growing the business.

Email Marketing

Clients are reaping results from email marketing campaigns. So having the right content and creative are critical. Companies can build a relationship with their customers when email marketing is executed with the reader in mind. Be informative and helpful vs. direct selling, and see an impact on business.

Strategic Paid Traditional and Digital Media Campaigns

Linking these two strategies (traditional and digital) is more effective. First and foremost, invest to meet the target where they are. Approach them in the right mediums. Earn more quality customers by thoughtfully targeting your messaging to impact sales more effectively.

Marketing Leaders Asking the Right Questions

We love this marketing thing: smart leaders. Our clients are smart marketing leaders who are thoughtful in their approach. To start with, we see them asking the right questions. But then we’re asking them the right questions too. This collaboration pays off for both businesses. They want a plan over time, not a one-off initiative. Thus, they are in it to win it for the long haul, and so are we.

Re-evaluate the sales funnel

The sales team might be engaged in selling one-on-one. But it might not be utilizing technology, processes and other tools to continue to engage and grow the engagement. Successful customer engagement and retention includes tactics at every point in the sales funnel. And utilizing powerful tools to scale and automate in conjunction with smart, thoughtful strategies make sense.

Client Loyalty and Retention

It is easier to grow existing business than gain new business. Enter the customer loyalty program. The trend in loyalty and customer retention programs will continue, blurring the lines between physical and digital as 2023 progresses, making customer retention a seamless experience. Loyalty programs incorporate email, text messages, and even print. Clients can grow their infrequent shoppers into brand fanatics using loyalty programs.

Ready to Love Your Company’s Marketing Things?

Think deeper in 2023. Really focus your attention on your customers. Ultimately, create a marketing ecosystem that keeps them informed. Give them insider information. And make their lives easier. This approach is a sure way to see your business grow this coming year. And we would love that for you!

Focus on your impression as a graphic designer

As a graphic designer, you are always focused on making brands for someone else. Listening to clients describe the vision and personality of their company, you then make a cohesive new brand that fits what the client described. It’s the same routine every graphic designer has experienced day in and day out.

But why do people say it is important to create a personal brand? Even though you are focused on creating and designing brands for someone else, you have to step back and focus on who is selling that work: you are. Your personal brand can demonstrate your strategic thinking and creativity to potential new clients. So what is your personal brand currently saying about you? Maybe its time to take it to the next level.

Break the process for yourself down into simple steps

Here are 5 ways to help you brand yourself better as a graphic designer, and benefit by standing out from the crowd this year. 

1. Define who you are 

One of the hardest things about creating your personal brand is defining who you are. But if you ask yourself some questions it could help you define it and put it into words. 

Out of all of your work, which is your favorite design that you have done?

As a graphic designer, what motivates you? 

Where do you excel? 

What do you want your clients to feel when they first discover you as a graphic designer? 

How do you present yourself every day? 

2. Establish your audience 

Who do you want your future clients to be? Try to build a personal brand that reflects the audience you want to work with. Look up fellow designers and see how they handle this themselves and market to their target audience (clients, agencies, etc). 

3. Study brands you like 

Just like you would research a company for a new project, take a look at other designers and creative agencies that you like. See what they are doing regarding their brand and take notes on how to enhance your own brand.

4. Image is everything 

Start creating social media updates that reflect your enhanced brand. Make a website where you can showcase all of your past designs in a personal branded format using such platforms as Behance and Dribble. Be judicious when you choose work to show off. You’ll want to highlight work that most reflects the work you want to do in the future.

5. Interaction on social media

Posting regularly about clients’ work or your personal work will give you a presence on social media. This way you can keep up with the audience’s reaction and trends in the design world. Keeping up to date with coworkers or potential clients gets your name out there. Building those connections can help you get future work opportunities.

Your new better brand will get you further

Once you brand yourself more effectively, you will have created a strong impression and help future clients know who you are. It can persuade their decision to work with you. Branding yourself as effectively as you brand your clients is a way to help plus-up your career and focus not only on the work you do now, but the work you want to do in the future.

Ready to skill up this year by attending a great conference for marketers like you?

Why are conferences for marketers important? They’re a tool for growth in your marketing career! First, you are learning new skills. Next, you’re exposed to best practices from peers and mentors. Then, you’re growing your network for future collaborations and opportunities. And most importantly, any work experiences outside of the office give you a fresh perspective and renewed enthusiasm for your job. It’s a win-win-win-win.

Attend one of these conferences for marketers this year:

Adweek: Outlook: You can join AdWeek for a value-heavy program to talk about the benefits of monetization strategies. Explore new tools disrupting the industry. Speakers in attendance include top names in media, marketing, and tech. This program aims to figure out how to use these innovations to supercharge growth and revenue. Over three days, you’ll learn how to connect with customers. Plus, you’ll tackle talent and transformation topics.

Content World Marketing: Content Marketing World stands out among brand marketing conferences. First, it provides a space for you to improve your content creation skills. Second, it helps you connect with other creators. At this conference, you will meet important professionals in the industry, meet potential hires, and gain knowledge to improve your marketing systems.

INBOUND: INBOUND’s key goal is to connect professionals in the marketing industry. Every year, this marketing conference is one of the biggest marketing events. In fact, it attracts thousands of world-class professionals. At INBOUND, you will meet some of the best and brightest minds in sales and revenue operations. You also get to network with leaders in marketing and customer success.

SXSW: Advertising & Brand Experience: SXSW is not your typical marketing conference. But their Advertising and Brand Experience track is a great way to expand your mind and your perspective. This SXSW track is designed for agencies and organizations. Find forward-thinking strategies to connect with communities.

SEO

MOZCON: MozCon is like a summer camp for marketers. This conference brings together digital marketers from all over the world for three days. During the program, marketers learn to overcome all the common and specific obstacles in the current marketing world. The speakers range from leaders in performance marketing, SEO, conversion optimization, local search, digital marketing strategy and conversion optimization.

Social Media

Social Media Marketing World: Social marketing is changing more and more each day. If this industry has taught us anything, it’s that you’ve got to embrace change to get ahead. Join thousands of the world’s smartest marketers and influencers — brought to you by Social Media Examiner. Walk away with real business-building ideas. And then put them to work for your business or clients right away.

Regional Traveling Conference for Marketers

Digital Summit Series: Digital Summit Series happens across the United States in more than 15 cities, including Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. The summit includes sessions covering digital marketing best tactics and practices, SEO, content, social media, analytics and strategy. Plus, you can choose either a virtual event or attend in person.

Virtual Conference

AMA Conferences: As the global leader in marketing knowledge, the AMA provides a broad range of opportunities to collaborate, network, learn, and grow professionally. Here you’ll virtually learn from industry and academic leaders, speakers, and training instructors that you will encounter in the AMA community.

The benefits you’ll receive from a conference pay off all year long.

By attending a conference for marketers this year, you’ll be able to see the results in your work. Start applying what you learned to your everyday tasks. Then, begin a new project that will take your marketing department to the next level. You might meet your future boss. Overall, you’ll be inspired to try new innovations. And finally, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment for having invested in yourself and your future career.

Attend marketing conferences to learn, grow and connect with other leaders.

Attending a branding or marketing conference can not only expand your knowledge, it can expand your network. It can also broaden your opportunities and your outlook! To begin with, when you go to a conference, you’re hanging out with people who do a job like yours. These are people who face the same leadership challenges that you do. You have similar interests, as far as work goes, so you can all learn from each other. At a marketing conference, you can share experiences and gain best practice knowledge from others who do your job.

Improving your knowledge is another reason to attend branding and marketing conferences. For instance, you might learn new cutting edge information about your profession. Or you can learn how to enhance the work you are already doing. The impact on your upskilled performance is worth the price of admission.

Gain valuable insight into your industry, profession, or specific job.

First of all, attending conferences gives you the opportunity to meet people who do what you do now. And secondly, you’ll get a chance to network with people who do what you’ll do next. Meeting people you admire in person gives you the chance to ask questions, have a chat with them, and get to know them and how they think. The best leaders surround themselves with other experts.

Marketing conferences to attend as a senior professional:

Senior Leadership

CES: CES is the most influential tech event in the world — the proving ground for breakthrough technologies and global innovators.

This is where the world’s biggest brands do business and meet new partners, and the sharpest innovators hit the stage.

World Business Forum: Organized and curated by WOBI each year in cities across the Americas, Europe and Asia, World Business Forum is a two-day event that brings together thousands of restless minds united by their passion for business.

• Learn from and be inspired by some of the world’s most renowned figures from business and beyond. It’s a blend of content comprised of CEOs, entrepreneurs, innovators, thinkers, artists and sportspeople.
• The conference focuses on the issues most relevant to today’s businesspeople, stimulating new thinking and inspiring action.

It provides a unique networking environment to connect with like-minded professionals.

CMO/Senior Level

B2B Forum by MarketingProfs: The B2B Forum is a great space for B2B executives to meet and share advice on the best digital marketing tactics and technology.

While at the conference, you will get the chance to network. And you can connect with other driven marketing and business professionals. The sessions cover authenticity, logic, empathy, and building trust with your potential and existing clients. Overall, the program gives insights into your marketing style and what could be missing.

B2B Marketing Exchange: This is a core event for B2B marketing, covering the current issues in B2B, including Demand Generation, Messaging Frameworks, AI and Audience Centricity. Is there yoga in the morning? You bet.

Meet amazing B2B marketers and stay in touch with everything B2B.

BrandSmart: BrandSmart 2023 will be structured as 10+ TED Talk-style presentations. They’ll feature leaders from all over the world. They will be talking about the cornerstones of brand resilience. They’ll discuss the most recent trends and innovations, and give out the BrandSmart Awards. This conference lets professionals network in a uniquely styled format. Featured speakers include executives from Edelman, American Dental Association and SiriusXM & Pandora.

Strategic Marketing 2023: A Reuters Event, Strategic Marketing 2023 brings together leaders from the world’s most recognizable brands to define the future of marketing. This is the global platform to inspire and empower marketing leaders. Map the digital DNA of your consumer, foster brand loyalty and community, and unlock innovation.

Hyper-digitalization is driving an overload of online content. So marketers must stay ahead of industry trends and champion creativity as we look towards 2023. 

Join CMOs, trailblazers and experts at SM23 for the most crucial learning and networking opportunity of the year.

Take a step toward growth and learning this year at a marketing conference.

Make a commitment in 2023 to grow as a senior professional by attending one of these valuable conferences. Start finding your peer group. Then learn best practices. Maybe discover a new vendor. There are many benefits to including attending a senior level conference in your growth plan this year.