The Daily Story

Twitter has come a long way since its micro-blogging inception in 2006. But is it the right social media platform for your brand and/or business? Twitter has 145 million monetizable daily active users, according to Hootsuite, and about 92 percent of Americans are familiar with … Continue reading “Snapshot: The challenges and opportunities of Twitter for businesses”

Known as a visual-first social media platform, Instagram is largely regarded as the app for brands to target a younger audience. About 76 percent of the app’s users in the U.S. are younger than 44, with 59 percent of those users 30 or younger, according … Continue reading “Snapshot: The challenges and opportunities of Instagram for businesses”

While most businesses know they should create (and maintain) a Facebook page, the No. 1 social network still has its challenges. As of the second quarter of 2020, Facebook reported 2.7 billion monthly active users, according to Statista, so the biggest promise of the social … Continue reading “Snapshot: The challenges and opportunities of Facebook for businesses”

Congratulations! You’ve decided to take the leap and invest in the first marketing campaign for your company! And while marketing itself is definitely nothing new, being a first-timer isn’t as unique as it sounds. With so many new companies starting, this is an incredibly common … Continue reading “Where to begin? 7 tips to start your first marketing campaign”

Every business builds its website in the hopes of generating attention, leads and ultimately new customers. What we sometimes forget is that we have only mere seconds to win over a website visitor before we potentially lose him or her forever. In fact, we have … Continue reading “18 exit-intent tips to convert your website visitors (and not lose them)”

Mobile internet browsing isn’t just the future. It’s the present. In 2020, 274.7 million people in the U.S. accessed the internet through a mobile device, according to Statista. This means that about 83 percent of Americans are mobile internet users. You can refresh yourself on … Continue reading “16 tips for a mobile-friendly website that you can’t ignore”

These days, the mobile optimization of most websites goes without question. According to Statista, mobile devices (excluding tablets) generated 51.53 percent of global website traffic as of 2020, consistently hovering around the 50 percent mark since the beginning of 2017. And mobile internet usage is … Continue reading “6 reasons why mobile optimization matters to your business”

The last thing any smart business wants to do is accidentally annoy or “chase off” website visitors in the pursuit of capturing email addresses. Why capture email addresses? About 80 percent of business professionals say that email marketing increases customer retention, according to HubSpot. That … Continue reading “12 strategies to capture more email leads without annoying everyone”

New to automated emails? The good news is that they are an incredibly effective tool when blended into your larger marketing strategy. The bad news is that you might not know where to start. But that’s okay! Depending on your brand and business, there are … Continue reading “17 types of automated emails you can start using today”

Any smart business has already discovered the power of email automation. But it’s not too late to dive in and level up your email marketing as well.  Despite possibly being considered an “old” medium, the number of global email users is still growing. According to … Continue reading “9 reasons why email automation matters to your marketing”

Below are some highlights of product updates that went live August 7, 2020: Segment statistics When viewing a segment’s member list if you scroll to the bottom of the page you’ll find some statistics about the segment: Easily edit a dynamic segment We’ve made it … Continue reading “DailyStory Product updates for August 7, 2020”

Headlines don’t just happen.  Well, they do, but the good ones don’t just happen. That’s for sure. Headlines are the gateway to your content, whether it’s a blog or something else. Potential readers will decide in a split second whether to read more based on … Continue reading “19 tips to write effective, engaging headlines”

Pop-up ads have notoriously earned a bad reputation in the past. The boxes that appear and block some or all of the website you’re viewing are annoying. They’re invasive. They’re distracting. You’ve probably thought so as well at one point (or currently). In fact, the … Continue reading “Pop-up ads: 8 tips to get more leads”

Launching a startup company? You likely already rank the step of securing your social media handles across platforms with filing your articles of incorporation. Or at least you should. About 97% of digital consumers have used social media in the past 30 days, according to … Continue reading “What every startup company should know about social media”

Curated content helps you save time, diversity your mix of social media content, serve your audience and appear to be an expert. Just in case, it is “content gathered from trusted sources relevant to your industry,” according to Hootsuite. And while curated content is a … Continue reading “Curated content: 12 tools to help you discover, share more on social media”

Email marketing continues to be an important part of any digital strategy, but how are you welcoming your new subscribers? About 74 percent of users expect to receive a welcome email immediately after they subscribe, according to Invesp, while only 57.7% of brands actually send … Continue reading “Welcome email series: 9 tips on how to engage new leads”

Once considered the “new kid on the block” of digital advertising, influencer marketing has risen in both popularity and effectiveness (when done right). Brands are expected to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, according to Business Insider. In the simplest sense, … Continue reading “Influencer marketing: 7 tips to know before starting your first campaign”

Data privacy has become increasingly more serious and regulated in the past couple of years. Specifically, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the U.S. are the two biggest players when it comes to privacy regulations. … Continue reading “GDPR vs. CCPA: What you need to know about privacy regulations”

No one launches an email marketing campaign with the hope to land in a recipient’s spam folder. Inbox placement is imperative to a successful campaign. The simplest description of inbox placement is where your delivered email is delivered for recipients. Did your email appear in … Continue reading “Inbox placement: 9 tips to help your email get seen”

While text messaging can be an effective tool to reach your customers (and new leads), there are important rules to follow for SMS text compliance. Specifically, SMS text messages have a 98 percent open rate, which easily beats email marketing at 22 percent, according to … Continue reading “SMS text compliance: 9 tips to keep your business out of trouble”

Video is an undeniably powerful marketing tool, but what’s the best way to embed a video in your email? About 85 percent of businesses use video as a marketing tool, according to Wyzowl’s latest video marketing survey.  And the demand is there. About 85 percent … Continue reading “Video embed: A how-to guide for emails”

Trying to reach teenagers? The general recommendation is that the top three social media platforms to consider are Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, but which is best? As with everything social media and audience targeting, it can depend. Instagram is a visual-first social media platform owned … Continue reading “Instagram vs. Snapchat vs. TikTok: Which is better to reach teenagers?”

With technology comes the pressure for business owners to respond faster than ever to customers as part of their customer service. The top aspect of customer experience that customers think can be improved is “faster response times,” according to a survey by Zingle. And the … Continue reading “Customer service: 6 ways to be more responsive to your customers”

Curated content is like the “get out of jail free” card that helps you grow and engage your social media audience. Unlike the constant hamster wheel of creating organic content, curated content saves you time while also positioning you as an expert and serving your … Continue reading “Curated content: 4 tips on finding what to share on social media”

Text messaging is obviously a powerful tool that enables you to contact leads directly, but are carrier violations preventing your texts from being delivered? According to Smart Insights, 97 percent of text messages are read within 15 minutes of delivery, and 45 percent of text … Continue reading “Carrier violations: What to avoid during SMS text marketing”

Here is how to whitelist an email address or an entire domain in Gmail: Sign in to your Gmail account. Click the gear icon in the upper right corner and click “See all settings”: Select “Filters and Blocked Email Addresses” Click “Create a new filter”: … Continue reading “How To Whitelist An Entire Domain In Gmail”

It’s easy to assume that any social media presence you build for your brand has to be all about you: your company, your product, your voice. This just isn’t true. Curated content plays a huge role in many brands’ social media strategy. What is curated … Continue reading “Curated content: 5 reasons why social media shouldn’t be all about you”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, live streaming and video chat have become not just convenient but critical mediums of communication and content delivery. Many businesses that can no longer stay open now are pivoting to online services exclusively. Some are more ready than others for this … Continue reading “Live streaming: 12 tips for your business to look professional”

Why do some posts go viral, while others don’t? To potentially create a viral post yourself, you should understand how “the magic” happens. At its essence (algorithms not included), a viral post can happen when you share a piece of content that several of your … Continue reading “Viral posts: How do they happen?”

Tracking links are imperative to any marketing campaign. Long gone are the days of “buckshot” marketing. You want to know what’s working, what’s not and where the best bang for your buck is happening. Tracking links are unique URLs. They redirect to a landing page … Continue reading “Tracking links: 3 reasons why your business should use them”

Whether your team has suddenly shifted to remote work due to coronavirus containment efforts or you just started a new remote management position, it can feel like uncertain waters to lead a team effectively in a virtual realm. But being a great manager is more … Continue reading “Remote work: 9 tips to better manage your team”

SMS, or text messages, still are the most used messaging platform. According to Business.com, 97% of people text at least once a day, and since SMS messages are not screened by a spam filter, a business incorporating SMS into its marketing strategy can feel more … Continue reading “8 tips on writing a text message that won’t get ignored”

  While humor can help make content that much more engaging, being funny isn’t as easy as it sounds. It also can get your company in (at least social media) hot water if it comes off more offensive than funny. Humor can be an incredible … Continue reading “Humor: Is it right for your marketing campaign?”

With the end of the coronavirus quarantine still an unknown, an entire workforce has shifted to remote work from home.  Being productive while also maintaining a good work-life balance from home is easier said than done. Below are 11 tips on how you can be … Continue reading “Remote work: 11 tips to be productive from home”

You may hear it often these days. Your “brand voice” is everything online.  It helps people connect with you, engage with you and (hopefully) come to trust you. As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos once said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re … Continue reading “Find your voice: 8 tips for reflecting your brand’s personality”

Everyone is talking about the Coronavirus. Whether you’re adjusting your business operations or not during this time of heightened concern, it’s imperative that you communicate. You could have employees work remotely so that they stay healthy and capable of serving customers without interruption. You could … Continue reading “Coronavirus affecting your business? 5 tips to communicate best”

Push notifications have come a long way since first being introduced by Apple in 2009. If you have an app, they should be a thought-out piece of your overall marketing strategy in this climate of online noise. Below are eight things you should consider when … Continue reading “Push notification strategy in the works? Here’s what you should consider”

A successful email subject line is part art, part science but typically a recipe for anxiety for any marketer or business owner. But it doesn’t have to be. If you’ve noticed that your emails aren’t getting the open rate you are looking for, then it’s … Continue reading “12 tips for email subject lines that won’t get ignored”

Instagram has shown itself to be one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. Any successful account should have a sense of what’s working and what’s not for its audience. On Instagram, you can find Insights data in three different places in the Instagram app. To … Continue reading “Snapshot: Understanding your metrics on Instagram”

If you’re managing a Facebook page, it’s critical to know what’s working (or not) with what you’re posting. It’s also important to get a real sense of who your audience is. And all that data can be found in Facebook Insights. You’ll find Facebook Insights … Continue reading “Snapshot: Understanding your metrics on Facebook”

People love receiving a happy birthday message. And sending a happy birthday email, text or push notification is really simple with DailyStory. Of course, this article assumes you have contacts in your system with a date of birth value! Steps 1. First, create a new … Continue reading “Send a happy birthday message”

One of the safe guards we built into DailyStory is to prevent automation or scheduled emails from sending the same email to a recipient more than once in the same campaign. The beauty of this is you can schedule the same email to be sent … Continue reading “Resend, but with new subject line”

At a time when there are so many social media platforms and businesses know that they need to be relevant online, which platform is best? The answer isn’t one size fits all. Most importantly, don’t assume that you have to spread out across all platforms. … Continue reading “Which social media platform is right for your company?”

It’s far too easy to tweet and never look back at what worked and what didn’t. Be strategic with your Twitter presence and get a leg up on your competition. Twitter Analytics provides a wealth of information that can help you create meaningful tweets that … Continue reading “Snapshot: Understanding your metrics on Twitter”

In the noisy landscape of social media, internet browsing and text messages, writing an effective push notification that engages your audience is critical. According to the Data & Marketing Association, 78 percent of customers will opt out of push notifications or uninstall an app if … Continue reading “7 tips to write an effective push notification”

A segment is a grouping of your audience who share common attributes. For example, people in a 30-day trial that have not completed a purchase. Or, customers whose membership expires next month. Once a segment is identified, you can targeted the segment with specific messages … Continue reading “Use Audience Segmentation To Generate Leads”

Text messaging is an effective way to reach customers. More of our customers than ever before are using SMS text message marketing campaigns as part of their digital marketing efforts. Examples include: Reminders Offers and deals Promotions Affiliate programs Why text messages? A well-targeted and … Continue reading “8 tips for effective SMS text messaging campaigns”

If you’re marketing for B2B today, you know that one tactic alone won’t be the silver bullet. It’s the collection of all campaigns and tactics working together. Successful integrated marketing strategy starts with a committed brand focus, including a differentiated position, a compelling messaging platform … Continue reading “Why Integrated Marketing is the Key to Your Success”

The majority of email clients provide a snippet of text to preview the contents of an email in your inbox. This enables you to quickly scan your inbox and decide if you want read, save, or archive the email. What you may not know is that … Continue reading “Email Preheader a Practical Guide to Improving Open Rates”

Personalization is your ability to use the data you have about your audience to understand how your content best fits their needs or interest. This ensures visitors and customers get messaging tailored to them. People are unique. Your content should be too. Advanced marketing techniques, … Continue reading “Personalization is one-to-one marketing”

I’ve read a lot recently about a resurgence in plain text email. Some email marketers have even promoted writing exclusively plain text emails instead of using HTML. I wanted to share some of the research we’ve done and the recommendations we give our customers. What … Continue reading “Plain text or HTML email – which to use in your next campaign”

Capturing, storing, and using customer data is part of any modern marketing experience. Specifically for email and content targeting and personalization. Customer data drives customer experience Customer data is vital for matching content to the context of the visitor or audience. This is known as … Continue reading “Customer data best practices for digital marketing”

By using a no-reply email address you are signaling to your customers that you don’t care if they respond. Or worse, that if they did respond it is to an inbox that you aren’t monitoring or that would bounce. So why use no-reply email addresses? … Continue reading “Break the habit: Stop using no-reply email addresses”

SEO gurus and tools constantly remind you to set the alt text value with keywords for your images. You should do the same for images in email. Interactive email is the top trend for 2018 It’s common to use images in your emails. Sometimes for … Continue reading “Use Alt Text for Images in Email”

We wanted to share with you a brief overview and analysis of how the new General Data Protection Regulation from the European Union will affect customers of DailyStory. Please note, this is not an exhaustive analysis of GDPR. For more details please see the reference … Continue reading “General Data Protection Regulation from the European Union”

Looking for a list of the best marketing conferences for 2018? Our up-to-date list of the best marketing conferences for 2018 will help you find one of the dozens of marketing conferences happening around the world this year. We’re also keeping it up-to-date so you … Continue reading “Digital Marketing Conferences in 2018 – The Complete List”

Over the last year I’ve had countless conversations with people about the problems DailyStory is solving. Several people commented, “is this a Customer Data Platform?” So naturally, I am reading and researching about what a Customer Data Platform is. What is a Customer Data Platform? A … Continue reading “What is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?”

What if I told you that you have everything you need to enable marketing to improve your sales funnels, but that you may be missing one important part? My experience is that most mid-sized businesses have islands of data in a variety of digital tools … Continue reading “Why Marketing Attribution Is More Important Than You Think”

DailyStory was recently reviewed by FinancesOnline — a professional software review website that lists and discusses B2B software services in an effort to supply business owners with valuable information. Their software reviews assist decision makers going through the demanding process of finding the right tools … Continue reading “DailyStory Earns Customer Experience Management Software Awards from FinancesOnline!”

Salesforce integration to capture new leads from any web form on your website doesn’t need to be difficult or require custom code. Since starting DailyStory I’ve had an opportunity to work with several customers that wanted Salesforce integration. But they didn’t have the budget for … Continue reading “Simple Salesforce integration for any website”

Click fraud is a black-hat technique used to inflate the number of clicks on a pay-per-click ad. One of our customers asked us to build a report so she could get more detail into our paid search ad tracking – paid search ad tracking enables … Continue reading “What is Click Fraud and How to Prevent It”

The popularity of online shopping has grown tremendously. And, with customers spending more time and money online, this has raised customers expectations for online services. Traditional email and phone support channels aren’t enough. Today’s customers expect online chat options so they can talk with a … Continue reading “6 Best Practices for Online Chat Support”

Customer conversations are a great way to turn today’s visitor into tomorrow’s customer. Have you ever gone to a store and had a conversation with someone that works there? Maybe you talked with a cashier about the weather outside. It doesn’t matter what you talked about … Continue reading “Using Customer Conversations to Convert Visitors”

It’s easy to spend the majority of your new website budget on design and development without money left over for promotion and marketing, and now you need to grow website traffic. Maybe you’ve found yourself in this situation? The good news is you can do … Continue reading “Strategies for Building Website Traffic on a Budget”

Mater is a simple, open source, GitHub-based doc system built for Microsoft Azure. We built Mater to manage and publish our documentation and semi-officially announced open-sourcing Mater last week on our Twitter account. How it works Mater is designed to store all documentation, images, videos and other … Continue reading “Announcing Mater – A Free Documentation Platform”

Structured data is information you add in your web pages to help search engines better understand your content. 77% of search traffic goes through Google and not all search results are the same. This means you are constantly looking for opportunities to help your search … Continue reading “What is Structured Data And How To Use It”

If you are building outbound links and using target=”_blank” to open clicks in a new browser tab, you may have a link phishing security issue. As a digital marketing business, we want to help people find great content. That means we create lots of content … Continue reading “Building outbound links? You may have a link phishing security issue”

Looking for the 2018 List? Looking for a list of the best marketing conferences for 2017? Our up-to-date list of the best marketing conferences for 2017 will help you find one of the dozens of marketing conferences happening around the world this year. We’re also … Continue reading “Best Marketing Conferences 2017”

When I think about building software for marketers, I’m building on the experience I’ve had from previous businesses and some of the challenges that I experienced. Because of this business influence, I believe DailyStory is taking a distinctly different view of what a marketing automation platform … Continue reading “Building a Data-Driven Account Based Marketing Platform”

Exit Intent is an offer shown in a popup when a visitor is about to leave your website. It is your last chance to convert the visitor before they leave. Exit Intent is a feature of the DailyStory Customer Engagement platform. Below are 10 reasons … Continue reading “Top 10 Reasons to Use Exit Intent”

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), as it relates to digital marketing, is the application of a system and process – typically automated with software – designed to convert a higher percentage of visitors into customers. A basic use of conversion rate optimization starts with a base … Continue reading “What is Conversion Rate Optimization?”

There are two primary strategies for reaching your audience when they are searching on Google or Bing for your product or service: content found organically and advertisements. Both are critical. Small businesses especially recognize the need to optimize for both organic and search engine marketing. The … Continue reading “AdWords or AdWords Express: Which Ad Platform?”

We’re excited to announce that DailyStory 30-day Trials are now available in Microsoft AppSource! You can find DailyStory on Microsoft AppSource in a number of ways. The easiest? Type in “marketing automation” into the search bar and we’re the first result: This brings up a list of results. DailyStory … Continue reading “DailyStory Now Available In Microsoft AppSource”

We’ve had some great feedback from our customers so far and continue to push out bug fixes and features almost every day. We have slowly started turning on some of the reporting features for a few of our customers. Later today we’re going to enable … Continue reading “Reporting on Lead Conversion Funnel”

Over the past several weeks I’ve had multiple conversations about DailyStory and our vision for helping in the evolution of digital sales and marketing. One of the consistent topics that keeps coming up is: the struggle many leaders have of connecting the investments made in … Continue reading “Great digital marketing integration with sales equals more revenue”

Building a great organic search strategy is critical for improving your Google organic search rankings. The good news is that the fundamentals are easy to follow and even easier to implement to ensure you show up on the first page in Google search results. Content … Continue reading “Organic search performance (SEO) on Google”

A couple of days ago I wrote about 3 best practices for exit intent. Exit intent is something that is built-in to DailyStory as part of the digital marketers toolkit we include. Adding exit intent to your website with DailyStory is super simple Once the DailyStory … Continue reading “Using Exit Intent with DailyStory and WordPress”

Done right, managing your visitors intent to leave your site, known as Exit Intent, can directly impact your conversion rates. Done wrong it can be an annoying distraction and be damaging to your brand. This article contains a list of Exit Intent best practices. You’ve … Continue reading “Exit Intent Best Practices to Improve Conversion Rate”

WordPress is a great CMS, but the best thing about it is the simplicity. When I set out to launch www.dailystory.com WordPress was a natural choice because I also wanted to build integration between DailyStory and WordPress. Part of the premise of DailyStory is to manage people through … Continue reading “Integrating DailyStory and WordPress”

Greater than 56% of the content on the web is accessed through mobile devices and this number is only growing! Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a new standard from Google to ensure your content renders as quickly and efficiently as possible on mobile devices. Odds … Continue reading “What are Accelerated Mobile Pages? What is AMP?”

If you are a developer, ‘hello world’ is a familiar concept. If you’re not, its typically what developers use for the first message of a new program they are working on. Once upon a time I wrote software, so I thought it was a fitting title … Continue reading “Hello World, Introducing DailyStory”