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SUMMARY:
It’s the time of year to look forward. How can we set ourselves up for success in 2020? Set the right strategy, the most effective tactics, a gratifying intention? To help you get off on the right foot, let’s take a glimpse back at your peers’ favorite MarketingSherpa articles of 2019. Read on for templates, a handbook, a report, an article and a case study that can help inspire your thinking for the new year. |
(As seen in the MarketingSherpa newsletter. Click to get a free email subscription to the latest from MarketingSherpa.)
In some ways, 2019 is most remarkable for what didn’t happen. There wasn’t a major market or economic crash. Despite some saber-rattling, there were no new wars ... and even so-called “trade wars” had only minor disruptions on the global economy. While technologies like automation and 5G continued their march forward, they have yet to significantly disrupt employment models.
On the marketing front, while online video grew, people still watched TV. They searched with their voice more, but far less than they did with their fingers. And while clever new augmented reality campaigns were launched, their usage still paled in comparison to actual reality (experiential, in-store, print, etc.)
I say all this because many year-end wrap-up articles necessarily overemphasize major events. It is, after all, the nature of a year-end article. But while Disney Plus, Greta Thunberg, the Instagram Egg, and President Trump’s taxes were all important stories, they likely didn’t have a major impact on your marketing.
So be careful to not get overly caught up in the hype. Yes, it’s important to understand the changing tides, the macroeconomy and the cultural zeitgeist. However, the majority of your marketing department’s success likely relies on more fundamental topics.
Let’s take a look at a few of them. The content most frequently visited by MarketingSherpa readers covered landing pages, value proposition, headlines and email marketing …
Staring at a blank page for your next landing page? Not sure what it should look like? How it should be laid out?
Before you put together your next wireframe, take a look at this 46-page ebook that walks you step-by-step through important elements for main offer pages, transaction pages and directory pages.
“Great content. Much appreciated :-),” Michael emailed us after downloading the piece.
GET YOUR FREE LANDING PAGE TEMPLATES
Value proposition is critical to the success of your overall business, campaigns and individual marketing pieces. This 20-page report provides a step-by-step outline to help you drive better results by discovering what it is about your business that customers crave.
“This is most excellent! This addressed all my questions … Categories of Value/Progress seems like a great way to group things to test to find the value proposition that resonates best with the ideal customer,” Steve emailed us after downloading the PDF.
GET YOUR FREE VALUE PROPOSITION REPORT
A powerful headline is your make-or-break opportunity to connect with the customer and get them to engage with the rest of your landing page, print ad, email, etc. — and ultimately convert.
This article is filled with 30 successful headlines. But much more than that, we also included the headlines that underperformed for the same piece, so you can see not only see for yourself what worked – but also what didn’t – for landing pages, preference center, email, website, newspaper article, and pay-per-click ad headlines.
Here are lessons from the article that Holly shared on LinkedIn:
“This is a great collection of headline ‘before-and-afters’ — 30 powerful headlines that improved marketing results.
What I take from this is that headlines should:
Check out the full list!”
A MarketingSherpa reader emailed us:
“I still think the Landing Page Handbook is the best resource on the topic that has ever been produced.”
So we re-released the second edition of the 273-page handbook, offering a free copy to all readers.
“Impressive Handbook and Toolkit. I'll read and study them carefully and share knowledge of your services even to others,” a reader from Sweden emailed us after downloading his copy.
Copywriter Xristopher Bland shares how he helped an email list of 150,000 people with an average 2% open rate get a 950% open rate increase.
On Twitter, Mary said this about the case study:
“Can we stop buying into short emails are best? Xristopher Bland shares how he helped a list with a 2% open rate get to 21%. His emails were LONG stories! #emailmarketing #conversions”
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