Here’s a straightforward marketing insight: if you’re a B2B marketer who operates in or targets the United States, chances are, your email list is severely damaged.
In the last 6 weeks in the United States, unemployment claims totaled more than 30 million. For context, the total employed population in the United States is approximately 163 million; prior to the pandemic, approximately 5 million people were unemployed. Combined, this now means unemployment is approximately 22%.
How much of your audience is now unemployed? To be sure, some sectors like services were impacted much more heavily, but layoffs have occurred in virtually every industry sector, and more to come over time as the ripple effects spread through the economy.
What this means is fairly clear: every non-personal email you have in your database has the potential to be invalid. Personal emails – the hotmails, gmails, etc. of the world – should continue to be fine, but corporate emails likely will not be.
So what should you do about it? First, if you’ve ever had a policy of not letting people do things like sign up for webinars, newsletters, etc. with a personal email, this would be the time to revoke that policy. Having someone’s non-work email may be the only way you’re able to stay in touch with a valuable member of your audience, so open the floodgates by removing restrictions.
Second, keep an eagle eye on your own email marketing software. Many sophisticated email marketing and marketing automation packages will automatically collect and remove dead addresses – watch those numbers carefully.
Third, keep an eagle eye on your web analytics. In services like Google Analytics, assuming you have it configured properly, you should be able to see email’s impact on site traffic and conversions. Watch those numbers for sudden declines – if you see a sudden decline, chances are a good chunk of your list went bad.
Fourth, if you see sharp changes in your web analytics and/or your email marketing analytics, take your entire email list and re-validate it. There are plenty of great services available which will do this for you, providing data back about which accounts work and don’t work. This is a fairly intensive effort that requires budget and time, so pull the trigger when you start to notice declining performance; if everything is fine and you’re not seeing more than normal bounced addresses, then do this step only as part of your regular marketing technology maintenance. (and if you want help with that, ask us)
Media mogul Jeff Pulver famously said that we live or die on our database. This has never been more true than in rough times. Your audience – and your ability to reliably reach it – is one of the pillars of great marketing strategy. Make sure that pillar is rock-solid with the steps above.
This week’s Bright Idea is a very special video interview with our friend and colleague Brooke Sellas, founder and CEO of B-Squared Media. We continue our exploration of client retention strategies in the current global crisis and Brooke shares her best tips for client retention and loyalty. She delivers insights about which industries are doing more with digital marketing, how she manages scope creep, and practical tips for managing crisis communications to clients.
Are you subscribed to our YouTube channel? If not, click/tap here to subscribe!
This week’s Rear View Mirror looks at the month of April for brands on Facebook. How did they fare in the first full month of the pandemic for many nations?
Average brand engagement on Facebook for unpaid posts in April 2020 was substantially higher than in previous months; for most of the month, brand engagement hovered around 0.10%. For context, at the end of 2019, brand engagement for unpaid content on Facebook averaged 0.04%; this is a 2.5x increase in engagement. We know the reason why, of course – as the majority of the world had to shelter in place, Facebook itself received more traffic than ever. With brands pulling back on advertising spending (cited in the Facebook Q1 earnings call), there was simultaneously less competition by ads for eyeballs and more eyeballs than ever.
The key takeaway is this: make hay while the sun shines, as the adage goes. Right now, organic content stands a chance to be seen. Once fewer people are sheltering in place and brands resume ad spending, this opportunity will disappear. Take the time now to publish your best social content in the hopes of attracting eyes on Facebook – and promptly deliver strong calls to action to your email list or community off Facebook, so when conditions return to ‘normal’ – meaning higher ad spends and fewer eyes, you’ll have harvested as much attention as possible.
Methodology: Trust Insights used Facebook’s Crowdtangle software to extract 1,754,939 posts from 3,061 brands. Brands were curated initially by Facebook and augmented for completeness by Trust Insights. The date of the study period is April 1, 2020 – April 30, 2020. The date of extraction is May 6, 2020. Trust Insights is the sole sponsor of the study and neither gave nor received compensation for data used, beyond applicable service fees to software vendors, and declares no competing interests.
- The Return of Inbound Marketing Strategy
- Marketing Analytics, Data Science and Leadership via May 4, 2020 Week In Review
- Data Science 101 for Marketers: An IBM/TrustInsights Event
- 5 Applications of AI For Content Marketers at CMC 2020
- Competitive Social Media Analytics Strategy Masterclass
- The Importance of Tag Memes for Understanding Social Networks
If you work in communications or public relations, you’ve heard of the PESO (Paid/Earned/Shared/Owned) media model, pioneered by Gini Dietrich and the team at Spin Sucks. Take the next step and level up your career by earning a professional PESO model certification from Spin Sucks and Syracuse University.
In an eight-week online course, you’ll learn PESO model strategy, effective use of all four media types, how PESO forms the foundation of your overall communications strategy, and how to tie communications to business impacts like lead generation and overall business goals.
When you complete the course, you’ll earn an accredited certificate from Syracuse University’s SI Newhouse School of Public Communications, a powerful tool for setting yourself apart and above in the job market.
Learn more about the certification today at TrustInsights.ai/peso >
Shiny Objects is a roundup of the best content you and others have written and shared in the last week.
Data Science and AI
- You Ask, I Answer: Marketing Data Science Technical Skills?
- Outbreak Analytics: Data Science Strategies for a Novel Problem
- Data Curiosity: From Luxury to Necessity via insideBIGDATA
SEO, Google, and Paid Media
- The State of Nofollow, UGC, & Sponsored Link Attributes in 2020 – New Research
- SEO Checklist: How to Conduct an Advanced Ecommerce SEO Site Audit in 40 Minutes or Less via The BigCommerce Blog
- Changing the Game with R&D in Technical SEO
Social Media Marketing
- Facebook just made it easier to transfer all of your photos and videos to Google Photos BGR
- How Businesses Are Using Big Data For Social Media Marketing?
- How to Scale Valuable Facebook Lookalike Audiences via Social Media Examiner
Content Marketing
- How to Schedule YouTube Videos: A Step-by-Step Guide
- 14 Experts Share How to Get Support for Content Marketing
- 10 Ways to Amplify Favorable Media Mentions
Get Back To Work
We’ve changed things up in Get Back To Work, and we’re looking at the top 310 metro areas in the United States by population. This will give you a much better sense of what the overall market looks like, and will cover companies hiring in multiple locations. Want the entire, raw list? Join our Slack group!
_What do you do with this information?*_
By looking at this data, you’ll see what the most popular titles are; use any of the major job/career sites to ensure your resume/CV/LinkedIn profile matches keywords and phrases for those titles. For companies, search job sites for those companies specifically to see all the open positions and apply for them.
You can also hit up LinkedIn and see who you know at companies listed, and see if your connections have any inside tips on hiring.
Top Marketing Positions by Count, Manager and Above
- Marketing Manager : 424 open positions
- Digital Marketing Manager : 187 open positions
- Social Media Manager : 171 open positions
- Account Manager : 123 open positions
- Marketing Director : 121 open positions
- Director of Marketing : 112 open positions
- Product Marketing Manager : 87 open positions
- Pharmaceutical Marketing Accounts Manager : 83 open positions
- Product Manager : 82 open positions
- Project Manager : 79 open positions
Top Marketing Hiring Companies by Count, Manager and Above
- Northrop Grumman : 127 open positions
- Amazon.com Services LLC : 126 open positions
- SingleCare : 83 open positions
- Amazon Web Services, Inc. : 71 open positions
- Amgen : 71 open positions
- Facebook : 44 open positions
- JP Morgan Chase : 42 open positions
- Reynolds and Reynolds : 42 open positions
- Raytheon Technologies : 41 open positions
- AbbVie : 37 open positions
- Thermo Fisher Scientific : 37 open positions
Top Locations of Hiring Companies by Count, Manager and Above
- New York, NY : 200 open positions
- Seattle, WA : 195 open positions
- San Francisco, CA : 146 open positions
- Los Angeles, CA : 116 open positions
- Austin, TX : 97 open positions
- Boston, MA : 80 open positions
- Chicago, IL : 77 open positions
- San Francisco, CA 94105 : 77 open positions
- Atlanta, GA : 73 open positions
- Dallas, TX : 73 open positions
Methodology: Trust Insights uses the Indeed.com API to extract open positions from a geographic area focused on marketing analytics, marketing, social media, data science, machine learning, advertising, and public relations, with a filter to screen out the most junior positions.
Featured Partners
Our Featured Partners are companies we work with and promote because we love their stuff. If you’ve ever wondered how we do what we do behind the scenes, chances are we use the tools and skills of one of our partners to do it.
- Hubspot CRM
- StackAdapt Display Advertising
- Agorapulse Social Media Publishing
- WP Engine WordPress Hosting
- Techsmith Camtasia and Snagit Media Editing
- Talkwalker Media Monitoring
- Our recommended media production gear on Amazon
Join the Club
Are you a member of our free Slack group, Analytics for Marketers? Join 800+ like-minded marketers who care about data and measuring their success. Membership is free – join today.
Upcoming Events
Where can you find us in person?
- MarketingProfs Friday Forum, May 2020, Online
- Women in Analytics, August 2020, Columbus, OH
- ContentTech Summit, August 2020, San Diego, CA
- INBOUND 2020, August 2020, Boston, MA
- MarTech East, October 2020, Boston, MA
- HELLO Conference, October 2020, New Jersey
- MadConNYC, December 2020, New York City
Going to a conference we should know about? Reach out!
Want some private training at your company? Ask us!
In Your Ears
Would you rather listen to our content? Follow the Trust Insights show, In-Ear Insights in the podcast listening software of your choice:
- In-Ear Insights on Apple Podcasts
- In-Ear Insights on Google Podcasts
- In-Ear Insights on all other podcasting software
Stay In Touch
Where do you spend your time online? Chances are, we’re there too, and would enjoy sharing with you. Here’s where we are – see you there?
Required FTC Disclosures
Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, Trust Insights receives financial compensation for promoting them.
Trust Insights maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Talkwalker, Zignal Labs, Agorapulse, and others. All Featured Partners are affiliate links for which we receive financial compensation. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which we may receive indirect financial benefit.
Conclusion
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