Building an online store is easier than it’s ever been. But getting someone to buy is a different story. You can research, build a funnel, do all the right things to get people to select your products or services, but you can’t be sure that they’re even going to be interested by the time they get to the checkout. Don’t believe me? Believe Continue Reading...

Email, despite being one of the oldest digital marketing technologies, is still a critical part of today’s marketing mix. Permission based marketing works better than ever in a world of fragmented attention, driving an average return of $36 per $1 spent (per a Litmus report). Any marketer worth their salt will tell you to build an email Continue Reading...

“How’s it going? I’m David.” Visiting my parents in Spokane, I’ve found myself saying that a lot. No one here really knows me, and that means constant introductions. But most of those conversations proceed naturally — we’re meeting each other incidentally in the flow of the day, not seeking each other out. How do you introduce yourself to Continue Reading...

In the early days of the Internet, it was a lot harder to find information than it is now. Before Google, you used less refined tools: word of mouth, web rings (a sort of daisy-chain link between sites on similar subjects), hand-collated lists like Yahoo!. Your primary resource for information was your online community. Google changed everything. Continue Reading...

Marketing has changed a lot in the last 10 years. It might not feel that way. Most of the major players are the same as they were in 2014. Facebook and Google already dominated social media and search, and YouTube was the destination for video content. Content marketing was the main method of building business. But when you look closer, Continue Reading...

Text has always been the backbone of SEO … but that's starting to change Blogs were the go-to for early content marketing. Though images, audio and video eventually became important as content, they were mostly relevant to SEO through alt tags or transcripts. Optimization works differently today. Video SEO matters. Google recently updated its Continue Reading...

My brother and I loved Grandad Fraser's bedtime stories. When my grandparents visited, we would beg him to tell us a story. He'd always oblige, spinning tales of David and James's adventures in wild places in Africa, Asia and Australia. I still remember his deep voice talking about me and my brother floating down the "great gray-green Limpopo Continue Reading...

Digital content used to run on volume. No longer. I’ve done volume work before — and I have peers who still do. Most clients didn’t care about the quality as long as we published by the deadline; the goal was to shovel as much content as possible into Google’s hungry maw like coal into a steamship boiler. Volume was one of the biggest keys Continue Reading...

Remember New Coke? I don’t; I was born a little too late. But you can bet I’ve heard about it. Everyone has. It’s one of the biggest new product flops in history, born of corporate hubris and misguided focus group data. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Coca-Cola was under a lot of pressure from PepsiCo. Its market share was declining, and Continue Reading...

Vine may be dead, but it casts a long shadow. If you’ve ever seen a video from the Paul brothers or heard a Shawn Mendes song, you’ve felt the legacy of Vine. Many creators and online celebrities got their start creating 6-second loops on the short-lived platform. Vine died in 2017, but right as it was shutting down, China’s ByteDance was Continue Reading...