This is a guest post from Hugh Beaulac, a content strategist at MC2 who also works as a social media manager. With over 6 years of digital marketing experience, Hugh helps small and medium businesses grow online and likes to share his tips and tricks with top-notch marketing blogs like Wordstream, CrazyEgg, and Semrush. Follow him on Twitter to read his latest articles on Instagram marketing.

In the era of social media, when over 2.82 billion people have at least one social media account, email marketing isn’t the most obvious marketing tool.

It’s no wonder that more and more brands use social media platforms to promote their products and services as their target audience is active on these channels.

But here’s the thing: Although email is one of the oldest messaging channels, it still matters.

Why? Because nearly all social media users have active email accounts.

Recent Hubspot report claims that email marketing is still effective: 99% of customers check their email every day, 73% of people claim that email is the preferred communication channel to receive branded news and offers, and 59% of customers say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions.

For marketers, this means that combining social media and email marketing is a must. And with the growing popularity of Instagram marketing, there’s a perfect way to connect with engaged users and get more email list subscribers.

In this Process Street article, we’re covering:

• Why use Instagram to get email list subscribers
• Make the most out of your Instagram bio
• Give your customers a reason to share an email
• Use Instagram Stories to promote sign-ups
• Reach potential subscribers who don’t follow
• Benefits of Instagram marketing
• The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Marketing

Let’s take a look at four effective ways to grow your email list with Instagram.
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Guest post by Deana Kovac (Deana Kovač), an internet marketing specialist at Point Visible, a digital agency providing custom blogger outreach services. In her free time, she enjoys listening to music and singing karaoke, and she just cannot start her day without a hot cup of coffee.

Content optimization improves an existing page so it serves its intended reader and business goal more effectively. This content optimization fix shows how to fix underperforming content without tossing it out: diagnose why the page falls short, strengthen the answer, repair technical friction, and measure the result. The process uses two stages: identify weak content with evidence, then apply six focused improvements.

CRM and marketing automation software both help businesses use customer data, but they are built around different jobs. A CRM gives sales and service teams a dependable record of relationships. Marketing automation helps marketing teams segment audiences, run campaigns, and respond to behavior at scale.

That distinction matters because buying the wrong system first creates more work instead of less. The right choice depends on the problem you need to solve, the people who will use the system, and the handoffs that connect marketing activity to revenue. This guide explains the practical differences in CRM vs marketing automation, then shows how the two can work together.

Content marketing. Content strategy. Content… development?

There are so many content-related words buzzing around the world wide web.

Confused?

I don’t blame you.

However, any marketer or content creator worth their salt will know that content development is not a process to skimp out on.

That’s why, in this article, I’ll be discussing – and all in plain terms – what content development is and why it’s important. Plus, I’ll provide you with a content development process that’ll ensure you’ll research, create, edit, and promote stellar content audiences will want to engage with. Every. Single. Time.

Simply read through the following sections to get the complete low-down on content development:

• What is the content development definition?
• The difference between content strategy, marketing, and development
• Why is content development so important?
• An 8-step content development process for success
• Become an excellent content developer with our superpowered checklists!

Ready to become content with your content?

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This is a guest post by Ronita Mohan. Ronita is a content marketer at Venngage, the online infographic and design platform. Ronita is interested in a variety of topics related to digital marketing, visual content, and online engagement, which she enjoys researching and writing about.

Content marketing has certainly become popular.

In fact, it’s become a lynchpin for marketing strategies.

Businesses of all sizes are employing content marketers left, right, and center to ensure that content is created and distributed on a regular schedule.

The purpose of content marketing may have started as a way for businesses to communicate with their audiences, but it has taken on another angle altogether. Content marketing is now seen as a primary driver of SEO and organic web traffic, and content needs to be tailored accordingly.

Unsurprisingly, content marketers are spending huge amounts of time developing blog post ideas that will gain them traction, incite visitors to their websites, and tempt users to use the businesses’ products or services. But without a solid content strategy, the content itself could be insubstantial and ineffective.

That’s why in this informative post I’ll be discussing content marketing in detail, and presenting you with an easy-to-understand, four-step content marketing framework you can follow straight away. Just read the following sections:

• How to improve your content plan
• Content framework step #1: Setting your content marketing goals
• Content framework step #2: Undergoing content research
• Content framework step #3: Establish your authority
• Content framework step #4: Cross-promotion
• Use Process Street to complement this content marketing framework!

Ready to dive in?

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This is a guest post from Martha Jameson. As an educator at PhDKingdom.com and AcademicBrits.com, Martha found her calling as a writer, after pursuing web design and management. Her main goals are to share her experience, motivation and knowledge with her readers.

Link building has been a contested subject in SEO circles, not least because of the amount of speculation that goes into figuring out what factors are most important for securing you a top SERP spot.

Despite the controversy around Google’s search algorithm, a great deal of research has actually gone into figuring out what’s happening under the hood. At this point, we can be fairly sure that link building is a significant factor in the SEO of your website.

In fact, it’s actually quite difficult to get your website ranking without the help of link building.

SparkToro’s recent survey of over 1,500 professional SEOs placed the quality of linking sites and pages as the second most important factor, out of 26. That’s a big deal.

Building links is all about linking your website to others, and theirs to yours. As you increase your links, you increase the ability for your readers to access more relevant data, thereby increasing your own website’s relevance.

You’ve got to approach link building seriously in order to use it to your utmost advantage. Search engines will crawl through each page of your website in search of this information.

When you do this right, you can help boost your website rankings and help more readers find and access your content.

Here are 10 of the most effective SEO link building tips of 2019:

• Start co-authoring!
• Check out competitor keywords
• Peek at your competitor’s backlinks
• Watch out for new competitor keywords
• Help a reporter out (HARO)
• Start a blog
• Treat your testimonials like backlinks
• Choose evergreen keywords and topics
• Master the skyscraper technique
• Recover your dead backlinks
• Bonus tip: Check Wikipedia’s dead links
• Using Process Street for effective link building

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“Once upon a time…
A fledgling young business set upon a quest…
To incorporate digital storytelling…
After hearing of its success.

They scoured the web…
During all hours of night and day…

For digital storytelling techniques…
So their customers would stay.


But they couldn’t quite find…
The resources they sought to seek…
Until, that is, they found this blog post…
Written by the team at Process Street.”
– Anon

Storytelling.

It’s a medium nearly as old as time itself.

From the visual scribblings made over 30,000 years ago by our cavemen cousins to the 18th-century fairy tales about dwarves, goblins, ghouls and demons made popular by the Brothers Grimm, the human need for stories runs deep.

Luckily for us living in the 21st century, we have the digital and technological means to bolster the stories we tell in unprecedented ways.

And from a marketing standpoint, digital storytelling is something of a holy grail; with it, businesses can gain, engage, connect, influence, and retain customers.

So, if you’re on a quest to learn about digital storytelling and how to incorporate it into your marketing plans, you’ve come to the right place, adventurer. Read through the sections below:

• Chapter 1: What is digital storytelling?
• Chapter 2: The benefits of digital storytelling
• Chapter 3: Brands effectively utilizing digital storytelling
• Chapter 4: The digital storytelling tools of the trade
• Chapter 5: How Process Street can aid digital storytellers

Let’s begin.

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You may remember from Latin 101 at college that conversiō is the process of turning around, altering, changing, or converting.

And whether you’re now a WeWork-dwelling solopreneur or a newly-hired marketer at an SMB, it’s crucial for your leads to undergo conversiō.

After all, without conversions site visitors aren’t as likely to sign up to newsletters, put an item in a cart, or proceed to the checkout page and order that product or service. Conversions, therefore, are a major contributor to your business’ longevity.

This could be the point where you’re frantically thinking: “I want to secure my business’ longevity! How can I help facilitate conversions? And how can I optimize conversion rates for the better?!”

Slow down.

We’ve got you covered.

During this post we’ll be explaining all things CRO – conversion rate optimization.

First we’ll tackle what CRO is, then we’ll delve into an actionable framework for increasing your conversion rates, and then we’ll provide you with a Process Street-made template which has everything you need to hike those conversion rates up!

All you have to do is read the different sections below:

• What is CRO (conversion rate optimization)?
• A 10-step framework for optimizing conversion rates
• Use Process Street’s template for CRO and website optimization
• The secret 11th step for improved website conversion

Let’s jump straight in.

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This is a guest post by Jessica Bruce. Jessica is a professional blogger, guest writer, Influencer & an eCommerce expert. She’s currently associated with ShopyGen as a content marketing strategist. She also reports on the latest happenings and trends associated with the eCommerce industry. Follow her on Twitter.

As soon as a new eCommerce website launches, there’s a race to get as many visitors as possible.

The race certainly isn’t easy, and what makes it harder are the additional hurdles that come up along the way. One of these hurdles, as you may or may not know, is the acquisition of conversions.

Conversion is the most crucial acquisition for any eCommerce business. An eCommerce business cannot survive with mere website traffic; it needs conversions to drive revenue.

“Trying to increase sales simply by driving more traffic to a website with a poor customer conversion rate is like trying to keep a leaky bucket full by adding more water instead of plugging the holes.” – Bryan Eisenberg, Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results

That’s why, in this post, we’ll be looking at what conversion and CRO (conversion rate optimization) are, how to calculate conversion rates, in addition to giving you a handful of free, useful CRO hacks that will boost your eCommerce sales.

What is conversion? And what is CRO?

Before digging deeper, let’s consider what conversion actually is first.

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In experiment after experiment, the real-world human decision-making process falls outside of rational economic theory. Indeed, many of the decisions we make are completely irrational.

Don’t take my word for it.

Dr. Dan Ariely‘s book Predictably Irrational explores our irrationality and motivations in great detail. If you don’t want to read the book then I highly recommend checking out his Ted Talk:

Simply put, our instinctive brain often seems to take control at the pivotal moment of choice. If you could understand why and how this happens, you can better predict your customers’ behavior and give them the value that they’re looking for.

This is where social cognition and behavioral psychology come into play. It’s an area that the marketing team here at Process Street is spending a great deal of time studying so that we can better serve our customer.

Social cognition is the study of how our minds interpret people and the world around us. This article will give you a primer into some of the core concepts and go over real-world examples to help solidify these principles.

You’ll learn how to have a better understanding of how people interpret your messages (marketing, personal, etc…) and be able to apply these concepts to all areas of your life. You’ll be able to communicate to your audience effectively and accurately.

“I am like a machine being driven to excessive rotations: the bearings are incandescing and, in a minute, melted metal will begin to drip and everything will turn to nothing. Quick: get cold water, logic. I am pouring it over myself by the bucketload but the logic sizzles on the hot bearings and dissipates elusive white steam into the air.” – Yevgeny Zamyatin

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