How and Why You Should Upgrade to Google Analytics 4

google analytics results on cell phone

Last year, Google announced the most significant change in the history of Google Analytics: Google Analytics 4 (GA4). In essence, Google has been working to improve its analytics platform to provide a more powerful marketing tool that helps businesses make better decisions. Since the announcement, we’ve been walking our clients through the changes of how and why they should upgrade to Google Analytics 4.  

We recently interviewed Digital Marketing Strategist, Amanda Bihun, to get her take on why businesses should upgrade their analytics to GA4 and how to successfully implement it. Here are a few takeaways from that conversation. 

Why You Should Upgrade to Google Analytics 4

Reason #1:  Google Analytics 4 will become the primary platform soon.

The main reason to move to GA4 is that Google is no longer updating and supporting Universal Analytics. Just a couple of weeks ago, Google announced that Universal Analytics will officially stop processing data on July 1, 2023. At that point, we will all be forced to move to GA4. However, because the two platforms do not talk to each other, waiting to make the switch will keep you from accessing any legacy or historical data. The earlier you adapt to GA4 while still using Universal Analytics, the longer you have to build up that historical data. 

Why is this historical data important? Without it, you cannot show growth or decline. Numbers don’t have as much meaning without proper context. Capturing as much historical data as possible through GA4 will provide greater insights into the way the data changes over time. 

Reason #2: Google Analytics 4 provides advanced event tracking of goals and conversions.

GA4 is much more accurate and reliable in tracking goals because they are done through Google Tag Manager. This allows users to isolate an event specifically so we can determine how successful it was. For example, if you want to know how a specific email newsletter campaign worked to drive business development leads, that will be easier to do using Google Analytics 4. In Universal Analytics, goals were more loosely defined and often counted traffic to a page that wasn’t actually a lead or conversion. 

Reason #3: Google Analytics 4 provides more detailed engagement metrics.

GA4 got rid of bounce rates and other tactics we would use to try and measure engagement. Instead, it provides a standardized way to measure engagement rates and user engagement. This is important because overall success cannot only be measured by the number of people that visit the site. We need a more comprehensive view that connects the dots between how long they stay, how many pages they visit, what type of content they are consuming, what links they’re clicking on, and which forms they’re filling out. GA4’s updated metrics provide a new line of sight into how functional and user-friendly a website is and also how many people are interacting with it.

How to Upgrade to Google Analytics 4 

Before you officially make the switch to GA4, it’s important to understand your current analytics functionality and website capabilities. For example, are you setting up a new site or one that already exists? What type of site is it? That will help you set up and configure your new GA4 properly. Once you’ve determined those questions, here are a few helpful resources: 

  1. How to set up Google Analytics 4 on a new website or app

Already familiar with Google Analytics but want to set up Google Analytics 4 on a new website or app? Then this is the article for you!

  1. How to set up Google Analytics 4 on a CMS-hosted website

If you have a CMS-hosted website (like WordPress, Squarespace, or Shopify) and want to set up GA4, then this article will guide you through the process. 

  1. How to add Google Analytics 4 to a site that already has Analytics

Does your website already have Universal Analytics, and you’re ready to begin transitioning to GA4? This article outlines how to set up Google Analytics 4 alongside Universal Analytics

Taking analytics seriously is essential for developing a data-driven approach to marketing and business. If you have any questions about Google Analytics 4 or how to use it to create a more effective website, feel free to reach out to our team at any time. 

Why is Your LinkedIn Page Underperforming? (and How to Improve It)

A man checking his social media on a tablet

While social media trends have evolved over the past few years, LinkedIn is still the essential platform for marketing and business development growth, especially for B2B brands. Every marketing department and business development professional should take time to consider how to use the platform, especially if you’re concerned that your LinkedIn page is underperforming.

There are a few good reasons why a strong LinkedIn Page is absolutely essential. According to an article from Hubspot:

  • 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions”
  • Companies that post weekly on LinkedIn see a 2x higher engagement rate
  • 40% of B2B marketers surveyed indicated LinkedIn as the most effective channel for driving high-quality leads

Improving Your LinkedIn Presence Can Go a Long Way

Investing a little attention and effort into transforming an underperforming LinkedIn profile can make a tremendous difference for your brand. Not only do the statistics prove it, we know it from our own personal experience. Last year, our team at Green Apple decided to collaborate on a strategy that would enhance our LinkedIn company page.  

A year into our strategy, we’ve seen exponential growth:

  • Increasing our number of followers 5x in six months. 
  • Increasing our reactions by 4,872%.
  • Increasing the number of times someone shared our content  by 2,566% 

While we are constantly looking for new ways to improve our strategy, we’ve learned some valuable insights so far. Here are a few takeaways we discovered when it came to transforming an underperforming LinkedIn presence.

Common Reasons Your LinkedIn is Underperforming 

Here are a few common reasons a company might struggle to create results from their LinkedIn activity: 

  1. You haven’t identified your target audience and their daily challenges and obstacles.

One of the most common reasons a business doesn’t get a lot of traction on LinkedIn is because the content they’re creating doesn’t resonate with their audience. It’s important to consider how you want to add value to your audience when determining if you should be on any social platform — including LinkedIn. Without taking time to identify who you’re trying to reach and understand the challenges they face on a daily basis, you’ll likely waste a lot of time creating content no one cares to read. 

  1. You lack a plan that helps you create a consistent presence. 

It’s important to have a consistent presence for your brand on LinkedIn. We’ve all had the experience of stumbling upon a company LinkedIn profile that’s updated once a month or, worse, hasn’t been updated in months. Creating a LinkedIn presence but not maintaining it is often worse than not having one at all.

  1. You are taking a “hard sell” approach that isn’t working.

There are plenty of people who take a hard sell approach on LinkedIn. These are the people who are often pushy with their tactics or are only sharing sales-oriented content on their company page. While these efforts occasionally work, most of the time they do not.  As with most social networks, it’s important to embrace the motto, “always be helpful,” rather than overwhelming your followers with self-promotional content.   

  1. You are posting content, but you aren’t engaging with others.

LinkedIn serves as a platform to help business professionals connect and engage with one another. As such, it works best when you invest time interacting with others. If you’re posting regularly, but you aren’t getting the most out of your LinkedIn presence, it’s likely because you’re missing an opportunity to create more meaningful connections with your audience by engaging with their content as well. 

How to Enhance Your LinkedIn Presence to Achieve Results

If you’re looking to take your LinkedIn presence to the next level, here are a few keys we learned from our experience: 

  1. Optimize your profile

According to Hubspot, companies with an active LinkedIn page see 5x more page views than those with inactive pages. Any given LinkedIn page contains a series of subsections. Businesses should ideally fill all of these sections out completely, with the exception of the “Jobs” section if you aren’t hiring.

  1. Get your team involved in content creation.

Because LinkedIn is primarily a platform for business connections, your employees can play a critical role in broadening your reach and strengthening your network on the platform. Your LinkedIn marketing strategy should include involvement from your employees. For our team, that meant collaborating on content creation and being strategic in how we worked together to promote the posts Green Apple was sharing. Taking the time to develop a strategy for employee advocacy is an easy way for your organization to expand its reach on Linkedin. 

  1. Use a variety of videos and images to create higher visibility.

Adding custom images can get you twice as many comments on your posts. Additionally, sharing a video drives up your engagement rate by five times. Both highlight the fact that varying the type of content you post is a critical part of your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

  1. Constantly test ideas and analyze your efforts 

As with any marketing strategy, it’s important to test and optimize your efforts along the way. The native LinkedIn analytics data gives you an in-depth look at how your posts are performing. Schedule a time to check your performance data regularly and formulate strategies for improvement.

Turning Around Your Underperforming LinkedIn Page is Easier Than You Think

It doesn’t take magic to transform your LinkedIn presence. There are simple techniques you can use to optimize the power of LinkedIn. All it takes is a little attention and effort on the front end and a commitment to evaluate your efforts along the way. If you need guidance on turning LinkedIn into a lead generation tool, Green Apple can help. Let Green Apple Strategy craft an innovative approach to your social media channels so that you can start targeting and attracting new team members. Reach out to us today for a consultation.

Reflections & Celebrations as Green Apple Celebrates 10 Years

rings of a tree stump with one leaf

They say you can learn a lot about the life of a tree by studying the rings produced from each year of growth. We think the same can be said for a marketing agency. This year, Green Apple celebrates ten years as a full-service marketing agency in Nashville.

As in any business, the past decade has been filled with innumerable highs and some difficult lows. There have been pleasant surprises and unexpected challenges. The marketing world has evolved dramatically over the past ten years. COVID-19 drastically changed our world. All of these realities have shaped and impacted the way Green Apple has grown.

Recently, I had a moment to sit down and reflect on some of the most meaningful moments we’ve experienced since starting Green Apple Strategy. Here are ten of the most significant highlights and milestones from the past decade.

1. Creating an agency based on a long-term, strategic partnership approach. 

I worked in multiple marketing and PR agencies throughout my career — all of which had a specific niche for supporting clients. When I started Green Apple in 2012, I wanted to build something different. I wanted our agency to be a strategic partner for clients, not simply helping with their immediate needs. This approach has shaped everything we’ve done – from client onboarding to staffing — and has made a tremendous difference for both Green Apple and our clients.

2. Helping clients find their “story” and tell it effectively in the digital age. 

Storytelling has always been an important part of marketing and advertising. When Green Apple was founded in 2012, businesses were trying to navigate the new digital landscape. It was incredible to walk alongside our clients as they navigated how to tell their stories more effectively — creating dynamic websites, leveraging the power of social media, investing in content marketing as a way to draw potential customers into the brand.

3. Being able to constantly optimize our efforts and prove marketing’s impact on the bottom line. 

As marketing evolved, so did our ability to measure it. We were able to define key performance indicators that would make a tangible difference in our client’s bottom line and then make data-driven decisions. It is still an incredible feeling when we can sit down with a client and see the direct impact we had on their growth or work alongside them to evolve our strategy based on what we’re learning. 

4. Developing and evolving our partnerships with clients. 

The longevity we’ve had with clients is one of the accomplishments I’m most proud of. Because of our partnership approach, we’ve adapted our services for clients as their businesses evolve. Because of this, we have several clients that started with Green Apple when we were a young company.

5. Working alongside a team of good people. 

It’s almost impossible to say what’s made the most difference between our approach and our team. From the beginning, I wanted to create a stable agency for our employees. I wanted to provide and give our team as much as we did to our employees. I’m incredibly grateful for all the team members, past and current, who partnered to help make Green Apple a great place to work for the past ten years. I always believed that hiring good people who want to help will make a tremendous difference. After ten years, I’m more convinced of that than ever before.

6. Starting the Green Apple Orchard. 

From the beginning, I wanted to create “the Orchard” as a team of freelance specialists that could serve our clients by doing what they do best. The Orchard has transformed our ability to work with top talent and provide clients with a team built just for them based on their needs and goals.

7. Partnering, learning, and growing from an incredible network. 

You don’t grow a business by yourself. As I reflect on the past ten years, I’m incredibly grateful for all of the valuable connections and meaningful connections I’ve had. Grabbing lunch with a potential client after being recommended by a mutual friend is still one of my favorite activities. But it’s more than referrals – it’s also milestones like contributing to the national Business Journal network and joining an entrepreneurial coaching group, which have helped me grow and learn.  

8. Evolving our agency into a hybrid office model. 

Staying connected has always been an important value for our team. While we began testing a “hybrid” office model in 2019, COVID completely changed the game when everyone was asked to work remotely. It was a difficult decision at the moment, but shifting to a hybrid office has been one of the biggest game-changers for our agency. This has opened up our ability to hire really great talent from anywhere. Right now, we have full-time employees based in Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina.

9. Joining EO Nashville in 2019 & winning Best in Business in 2020. 

One of my personal goals was to achieve $1 million in revenue before our 10th anniversary. We were able to hit that milestone in 2019 — which has created an incredible opportunity to join EO Nashville. While Nashville has become an “it city” for big businesses, joining the EO has opened up an opportunity to connect and learn from other Nashville-based business owners who care about making a difference in our city. The following year we were honored as one of the best marketing agencies in Nashville. Both of these milestones are markers of many of the highlights from the rest of this list.

10. Navigating all of the challenges and complexities of the past two years. 

The pandemic has changed our lives ­— personally and professionally. Almost every business suffered somehow, and navigating the challenges with our clients was no easy task. While several clients had to pause their marketing efforts because of the pandemic, we’ve started working with them to regain their footing. While most agencies were forced to furlough or lay off staff, our team has actually grown. As I look back over the past two years, I’m incredibly grateful and proud of the way our team has navigated the challenges of the past two years.         

As I “study the rings” from Green Apple’s ten years in business, the overwhelming emotion is gratitude.

I want to thank all of my team members, Orchard contractors, clients, networking connections, and friends who have worked with or simply mentioned Green Apple over the past ten years. You have all carved your initials in our tree.

How Green Apple Works to Build Your Perfect Marketing Team

iPhone and imac and hand working at a desk

When Green Apple was founded in 2012, we started with the commitment to always find the best way possible to serve our clients and support our staff. Rather than striving to become an agency with large office space, we wanted to stay nimble and find workspaces that were collaborative but not constraining. Instead of hiring dozens of full-time employees and trying to find ways to keep their plates full with projects our clients potentially didn’t need, we wanted to create a model that embraced the growing freelance economy to work with specialists who were building their businesses. 

That’s where the concept of the Green Apple Orchard began to take root. The Orchard allows us to build the perfect marketing team for our clients by working with some of the industry’s top creative talent. 

 

How the Green Apple Orchard Produces Even Greater Results for Our Clients 

1. We employ a team of freelance specialists to offer the best talent.

The Orchard is comprised of writers, print designers, web designers, web developers, photographers, and videographers who serve on our accounts as Green Apple team members. Many of the Orchard members have decades of experience in their areas of expertise. Some would be too expensive to hire on their own, but we have access to their services because they enjoy working alongside Green Apple’s clients in addition to their other commitments.

2. We match you with team members with the experience or expertise you need.

The Green Apple Orchard becomes even more valuable as we begin to work with new clients. Each client that comes in at Green Apple undergoes a thorough onboarding period. During this process, we select Orchard members who will fit best with those accounts for the services they need (writing, photos, web design, web management, graphic design, etc.). We’re able to work with specialists from various backgrounds who often have direct experience related to our client’s industry.

3. We can grow our team quickly as your needs expand.

Your marketing strategies and tactics should evolve as your company evolves and trends change. This is where hiring an internal marketing team can become tricky. For example, if you want to drastically shift your approach from an inbound content marketing approach to a more targeted account-based marketing strategy, your internal team might not have the experience or skills to deliver. Because of the Orchard,  we’re able to adapt our teams and services with clients as the relationship grows or your needs expand.

4. We maximize our hybrid model to meet your needs from around the world.

For the past decade, we’ve worked with specialists and talent from around the southeast. At the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic, Green Apple officially embraced a hybrid office model that allowed our entire team to work virtually but still have access to a central meeting space for meetings, brainstorming, team building, open-space working, and team collaboration. 

As a hybrid agency, we’ve become incredibly skilled at working with Orchard members from across the country. This allows us to tap into resources from literally around the world to meet our clients’ needs. 

Grow Your Business Through the Orchard

Are you looking for a strategic, full-service marketing firm that has the experience and adaptability to meet your needs? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation. Our team is happy to sit down with you to discuss your goals and how we can help you achieve them.

A Marketing Agency’s Review: Delighted Survey Platform

It’s a dilemma many businesses face: how can you capture accurate customer reviews without being invasive? For B2C businesses, review platforms like Yelp and Google Reviews do provide some feedback. How can B2B companies also leverage the type of feedback B2C organizations have more access to? While we’ve used several survey platforms to capture customer responses for our clients, Green Apple recently began using the Delighted survey platform. What were our experiences? Keep reading to find out! 

What Services Does the Delighted Survey Platform Offer?

Like many survey providers, Delighted offers seven different types of customer surveys, which include simple visual assessment measures. These include a smiley face scale, a thumbs up/thumbs down indicator, and a five-point scale survey. At Green Apple, we often use their more advanced survey types, which allow our clients to track things like a customer’s Net Promoter Score (NPS), a Customer Effort Score (CES), a Product Market Fit (PMF), and a Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). These data points can help our clients make informed decisions about product or service changes they plan to implement.

Delighted Provides Powerful Data Analytics

Green Apple originally chose Delighted because it’s user friendly and cost effective, but we’ve been impressed by the data and report options available. We also appreciate the email reports and the ability to track keywords in survey responses.

We’ve been able to really dive into the metrics offered by the platform by segmenting the customer responses and isolating specific keywords. We can also isolate reviews by the employee for the customer served. We have been able to track and report how well that employee has performed with customers. We have recently started reporting on this data monthly to show the client the top technicians and their NPS score or customer feedback. The client has implemented this data into their internal review efforts. 

Delighted Offers Multiple Survey Styles & Delivery Methods

Green Apple’s Digital Marketing Specialist Katie Jackson likes that Delighted offers multiple survey options, including SMS, surveys through a website, email surveys, brick-and-mortar kiosk surveys, and iOS in-app surveys. She finds the Delighted dashboard “simple and easy to understand” and says, “It’s very easy to upload and send customer surveys to our client’s customers!” Katie also appreciates the value-add that Delighted brings to our clients. 

“I think that Delighted has brought value to our clients because they are able to reach out quickly to the customer to fix any issues they may have if they leave a poor review. This has created better relationships with our clients’ customers because they are reaching out quickly after they submit a survey. We have also learned that SMS surveys have a really great response rate and customers like being able to text their responses back rather than going to a link in an email,” she says.  

Delighted Surveys: Our Takeaway

This survey platform has been a positive pivot for our Green Apple team. It allows us to gauge and track NPS metrics and offer actionable data to our clients. We’re also able to easily track data for customer responses through the platform. Over the past five months, we’ve come to appreciate all that Delighted offers. 

Want to Capture More Customer Reviews? 

Green Apple Strategy uses responsive, well-designed tools to help our clients gather and analyze essential data points. If you need more insight into your customers’ pain points, our experienced team can help provide you with the right data to make key decisions. From blogging and SEO to PR and social media management, Green Apple Strategy can craft a marketing approach to help you attract and retain qualified leads. Reach out to us today for a consultation.

Case Study: How We Increased LinkedIn Followers 5X in 6 Months

linked in logo on an app icon

LinkedIn is an essential platform for many B2B companies, and there are several reasons why:

  • 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions.” (Source)
  • 33% of B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to research purchases. (Source) 
  • 80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn. (Source) 

There is no denying that LinkedIn is one of the most effective social media lead generators for B2B marketers. Since LinkedIn allows users to generate content and create engagement, it makes sense for those involved in the B2B industry to remain active on LinkedIn. 

Recently, our team at Green Apple collaborated on a strategy to enhance our LinkedIn presence that increased our followers by more than 500 in less than six months. 

The Challenge: Testing Ideas to Transform Our Strategies

We often help clients use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and find effective ways to optimize B2B LinkedIn pages for business. We also believe to serve our clients effectively, we should always be looking for ways to test ideas and strategies ourselves. Understanding the ways brands use LinkedIn gives us insight into how we can integrate new approaches into the social marketing strategy we create for clients.

In May 2021, we sat down to develop a year-long plan that would help us learn new tactics and achieve specific growth, interactions, and engagement goals. We started with a little more than 100 followers on our LinkedIn page. 

Our Approach: Collaboration & Content to Accelerate Connection & Growth

To test ideas and strategies, we worked through the same strategic marketing process we use with our clients: 

  • We identified a goal and created a feasible strategy — We started by setting a goal to have 1,000 followers by May 2022. This seemed like an audacious but achievable goal. We also wanted to develop a strategy that would be reasonable for our team to execute. We know our team is primarily focused on client goals, so we collaborated on a feasible strategy that was highly achievable. 
  • We used our team strengths to devise a plan — The strategy we created was built to maximize our team’s unique strengths and gifts. One of the things that makes Green Apple unique is that our team is diverse in experience and expertise. We wanted to highlight this by encouraging team members to be present on LinkedIn. We also wanted to give our insights into the marketing industry, share what our team members are learning, and highlight the milestones our team reaches. 
  • We created a team-oriented approach — We knew that collective buy-in would be essential for achieving our goal. From the very beginning, we rallied the team behind the goal and provided ways to engage with our content, share their own content, and grow our network. We also wanted to share content highlighting the “everyday” aspects of our team — including behind-the-scenes photos and personnel updates from the Green Apple Orchard. 
  • We evaluated and re-evaluated our content each month — It’s important to constantly measure your efforts and tweak your strategy based on what you’re learning. Each month, our team would spend time reviewing the content we posted. The insights we discovered based on the performance of the various topics or types of posts allowed us to adjust our strategy along the way.

The Results: Discovering the “Link” Between Intentional Effort & Exponential Growth

Six months into the strategy, we’re well on our way to achieving our annual growth goal. We’ve also experienced exponential growth in our engagement. We’ve increased our reactions by 4,872%, comments by 7,800%, and shares by 2,566%. Along with these quantitative results, we’ve also created deeper, more meaningful connections with people on LinkedIn we hadn’t experienced before. 

If you want to learn more about our approach or discover how you can leverage LinkedIn for growth, reach out to us to help establish a strategic social media plan. Also — if we haven’t connected on LinkedIn yet, we’d love to share our content with you. You can find our LinkedIn page here.

Client Surveys: The Secret Ingredient for any Successful Agency Partnership

Client satisfaction is an essential ingredient for a successful partnership between a marketing agency and the businesses they serve. Whether it’s creating a website or driving your lead generation and brand awareness campaigns, marketing agencies exist to help your business achieve more than you could on your own. At Green Apple, we firmly believe that if our clients aren’t benefiting from our partnership, we want to know. This is where client surveys have become an essential tool for creating successful partnerships with clients.

Over the years, we’ve helped our clients to build customer surveys that produce the highest return on investment. Recently, we’ve decided to integrate that approach into our own workflow. In this post, we wanted to outline a few specific ways that client surveys align with our values as an agency and why we see them as an opportunity to continually learn, grow, and improve to serve others more effectively. 

4 Ways Client Surveys Help Marketing Agencies Improve 

Here are a few specific ways that client surveys help marketing agencies in the work we do each day: 

  • Client surveys provide insights that help assess client needs and identify effective solutions. It’s difficult to know what’s working and what’s not without qualitative and quantitative feedback. We believe in the value of making data-driven decisions based on campaign results. We also value the qualitative feedback of our clients. Client surveys are a way for us to assess client needs and identify solutions. To formulate our approach, we combine what the survey metrics are showing with what clients express through the surveys.
  • Client surveys provide perspectives on how to better serve and engage clients. Client surveys provide a valuable opportunity to assess how we’re working with our clients, in addition to evaluating the work we’re doing for them. Ultimately, they allow us to assess everything from internal processes that support the work we do to the dozens of interactions we have with clients in a given month.
  • Client surveys give direction for change and improvement. We believe that our clients’ opinions and feedback are two of the most important factors that validate the decisions we make for our business. For example, a few years ago, a significant number of our clients needed more sales-enablement resources than general branding materials. This allowed us to find creative ways to change directions in our service offerings to invest more in sales-enablement strategies that benefited our clients’ needs.
  • Client surveys capture a big picture perspective & track change over time. We’ve had the benefit of working with several clients for numerous years. Client surveys allow us to uncover seasonal trends or see how any recent changes have affected our client experience throughout our partnership together.

Why We Invest in Client Surveys to Enhance Partnership with Clients

Here are a few more specific reasons we’ve decided to invest in client surveys to enhance the partnership we have with clients. 

  • We want to live out our values in every aspect of our business. One of our core values at Green Apple is to put the client first in every aspect of our process — that is our bottom line. We believe client surveys are one of the best ways to do that. Assessing client experiences allows us to listen to clients, hear their feedback, and work with them to help them face their specific challenges.
  • We want to continually look for ways to create strong partnerships with our clients. Partnering with an agency that has a general philosophy and approach to business that is similar to yours is key for effective partnership. Client surveys provide a way for us to make sure we’re in sync with how our clients want to achieve their goals. 
  • We believe that open and honest feedback is key to a successful relationship. Effective agency partnerships are based on achieving results and effective communication. Client surveys provide a way to create stronger partnerships with our clients by providing an anonymous way for them to clearly share their thoughts. 
  • We want to continually learn, grow, and improve how we serve clients. Continual learning and growth are essential in the marketing world. This is just as true in how we serve clients as it is how we keep track of the latest marketing trends. We believe client surveys are a way for us to continue to add value to our clients’ strategies because they provide a way for us to continually learn and improve. 

If you’re curious about Green Apple’s approach to partnership and how we work with brands, check out our services page or portfolio of projects to learn more.

A B2B Guide to Marketing Automation

women having a business meeting a cafe

As a brand, connecting with your target audience is crucial. In order to connect with your target audience effectively, you need to know what content resonates with your target demographic, their sales cycle, and what they value most about your product or service. This type of in-depth research can be difficult to reproduce at scale, but marketing automation can be a powerful tool. Marketing Automation can help you identify your potential customers’ needs, establish several touchpoints on their sales journeys, and bring more sales to completion.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation refers to a set of tools and processes that are used to communicate with existing leads, bringing them closer to the point of buying. Any time a customer adds an item to a cart, leaves the page, and later receives an email with “Forgot Something?” in the subject line, that’s marketing automation at work. Setting up a series of processes, emails, reminders, or follow-ups can help you increase communication with your customers without taking the additional time or requiring you to hire new talent. Instead, marketing automation uses well-designed processes to help you discover potential customers, replicate high-performing practices, and encourage repeat purchasing behaviors. 

Marketing Automation Saves You Time and Overhead

Marketing automation has numerous benefits, but the most important is the time you save by streamlining your sales cycle. Rather than spending hours identifying and contacting qualified leads individually, it gives you the capacity to reach out to leads at the ideal point in their purchasing journey. There’s no need to manually import customers into your database. Instead, an automated marketing tool can identify and label leads for you by tracking a user’s interaction with your brand. 

Marketing Automation Can Strengthen Your CRM

Marketing automation also increases the power of your customer relationship management (CRM) tool, such as Salesforce. In tandem with a CRM, marketing automation can help you build a customized onboarding process and follow-up communication for clients in order to strengthen your customer relationships.

Especially in B2B industries, having a personalized connection can make or break a sale. Because automation analyzes your audience’s actions, it actively nurtures your leads by personalizing their experience and automatically segmenting their journeys. Marketing automation can monitor behaviors such as clicks, site visits, or purchase histories and provide your leads with information and opportunities that are customized to their needs. You’ll see improved conversion rates, and you’ll be able to assess and improve your sales pipeline with actionable data. 

How You Can Implement Marketing Automation

While marketing automation can be immensely effective, you need a strong foundation to see powerful results. This includes a reliable contact list, an up-to-date website, active email marketing tactics, and social media management. If you need a starting place, try refreshing your current marketing by conducting client interviews or researching SEO best practices.

Once you’ve established reliable groundwork, you need to indicate your specific goals. Your goals may include an increase in subscribers, clicks, sales, or page likes. After you’ve determined your goal, decide what platform you want to use.

There are several MA systems available, but consider your preferred budget, ease of use, type of marketing automation, and customer service when deciding which one is best for you. Finally, you should determine if you want to implement alone or hire a professional marketing company to begin your process. 

Iterate and Improve Your Marketing Automation

Nothing works as well in a silo as it does when combined with other tools. To continue achieving marketing automation goals, you should pair MA with inbound marketing and CRM tools to increase its reach.

You’ll also want to include other team members in setting up and improving your processes. Sharing reports with senior executives and data with your sales team will allow you to collect and implement their insights into the sales funnel. With the feedback and assistance from various departments, plus the results from your marketing automation tool, you can optimize your content, messaging, and strategies to retain your current customers and attract more.

Need Help Getting Started with Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is a powerful tool that can be complex to implement. Green Apple Strategy is a full-service marketing agency that helps clients communicate effectively to their desired audience. Are you interested in learning more about how we can help you start your marketing automation journey? Contact us today for a consultation! 

5 Qualities of an Effective Marketing Agency

business meeting with people looking at computer screen

Marketing agencies exist to be a guide that meets your business where it is and helps you get where you want to go. Whether you’re looking to build a brand, increase awareness about your product, services, and mission, or drive sales through more effective marketing tools, your agency should be a partner who understands your industry and can provide ideas, tools, and resources to help you achieve your goals. 

For the past decade, Green Apple has worked with dozens of clients in a variety of industries. We’ve also partnered with other marketing agencies to help our clients achieve their specific goals. With that experience in mind, we’ve identified five qualities you should look for when selecting a skilled marketing agency.

1. Quality Relationships Across the Agency

At its core, the partnership between you and your marketing agency is a relationship. But that partnership is built on numerous individual relationships: between you and the agency representatives, between employees within the agency, and between your agency and their vendors. If there are relational issues or breakdowns, your results have the potential to suffer. 

Behind every successful marketing agency is a great team of people who have both the skills to execute strategy and a positive attitude that makes for a streamlined workflow. That includes the leadership level and those responsible for executing the day-to-day project management tasks.

2. They Understand and Can Support Your Greatest Needs

Marketing agencies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Each has its own unique philosophy, approach, style, and strengths. One important factor we constantly focus on as an agency is our ability to truly understand what our clients need and ensure we can support them. 

This is why an agency needs to get to know the ins and outs of your business. What are your biggest challenges? What would others in your company say? Making sure your marketing agency is aware of what’s happening across your business and communicating your goals will help them identify the best ways to support it.

3. They Communicate Expectations Clearly and Mistakes Quickly

Effective agency partnerships involve constant communication. This is why asking specific questions before hiring a marketing agency can be helpful. It’s essential to know how an agency communicates with clients. It’s also important to understand how they expect you to communicate with them. Clarity is key. 

An agency should also be able to proactively and quickly own up to any mistakes. There isn’t an agency out there that doesn’t make mistakes. We’re human. But effective marketing agencies can communicate mistakes quickly and provide quick resolutions.

4. A Robust Team that Can Grow or Adapt with Your Needs

The marketing world is ever-changing, so it’s important to partner with an agency that is agile and able to adapt as your business evolves and changes. This is one thing that makes our approach at Green Apple unique. We don’t believe your business fits into a marketing mold. Instead, we mold our marketing practices around your business to help you be successful. Then, as more data comes in, we pivot, adjust, and adapt those strategies to be more effective over time. 

Often, our clients engage with us for one or two services, and our relationship grows to cover several different areas over time. For example, one of our clients started with social media and website support services. That quickly evolved into SEO and branding needs as they expanded into new markets. Now, we also assist with additional internal marketing and onboarding procedures for new employees. 

A Proven Track Record of Creating Results  

The goal of every effective marketing company should be to deliver positive results for their clients. When considering a partnership with an agency, look for case studies and testimonials to see how they’ve made their clients successful, and ask about measuring ROI. Marketing agencies exist to help brands, businesses, and nonprofits achieve something they can’t do on their own. But there are a lot of factors that go into making that happen. 

If you’re curious about how Green Apple can help you achieve your goals, schedule an exploratory consultation with our team. We would love to learn more about your business and see if we’re the right fit for you!

Our Readers’ Favorite Blogs of 2021

Lady working a laptop with a cup of coffee

When it comes to powerful marketing tools, we’re a huge proponent of the power of blogs. A successful blogging strategy can provide a huge SEO boost for your website, scale up your Google ranking by providing more content for the algorithm to sort, and can strengthen your brand identity. We practice what we preach, and our 2021 blogging strategy has brought us an increase in website visitors, new qualified leads, and content to use on several different marketing channels. Here are our readers’ favorite blogs of 2021: 

1. Four Factors for Creating a Customer-Centric Culture

In this blog, we give our top suggestions for building a brand culture that focuses on bringing your best to your customers. By animating your team, centering on your purpose, and understanding who you’re serving, you can bring unparalleled experiences to your clients and customers. 

2. Meet Our Owner/Chief Strategist Samantha Pyle

Our second most popular blog this year served as a quick introduction to Green Apple’s leader Sam Pyle. Her extensive experience in marketing and PR gives her the vision and clarity to guide our team. We love working with Sam every day. Through this introduction, you just might see why!   

3. 7 Key Elements of Eye-Catching Content

There’s no question: more eyes on your content means more leads and more engagement. How can you craft content that captures and keeps attention? These seven tips can serve as a guide when you’re planning future content.  

4. Enneagram and Marketing: How Type Ones Accelerate Your Strategy

We love all that Type Ones bring to our team, including organization, prioritization, and an eye for detail. Type Ones can also be a significant asset when you’re building a marketing strategy—here’s how they can activate your approach. 

5. Green Apple Goes Hybrid

This update on our move from in-person to a hybrid work model explores the benefits of switching to a more flexible working model, especially as the workplace changes in response to the pandemic. 

6. Enneagram and Marketing: The Creative Beauty of Type Fours

Types Fours are creative, original, and insightful. They’re wonderful for bringing new ideas to a team’s approach and process, which makes them valuable in any industry—including marketing. Take a deep dive into all that the Enneagram Type Fours can offer in the workplace through this blog.

7. Enneagram and Marketing: How Type Threes Move Mountains

It’s not a surprise that another blog on the Enneagram and marketing made it on our top ten list. This article explored how Type Threes energize and motivate when they’re implementing a marketing strategy. Our fearless leader, Sam, is a Type Three (as is our Marketing so we get to see (as is Senior Content Strategy, Skylar). We love to watch how Type Threes bring the best of their talents and skills to marketing. 

8. 5 Books to Read When Looking for Your “Why” in Marketing

There’s so much research out there that suggests that purpose is essential when it comes to finding motivation for your work. The same is true in marketing. In order to successfully share the benefits of your brand, you’ve got to dig deep into why you’re in business, what you can offer your customers, and how your purpose animates all that you do.

9. How Enneagram Type Sevens Bring Energy to All they Do

Enneagram Sevens are known for their extraversion, optimism, and verve, and they bring all these traits to the workplace as well. If you work with a Type Seven, they’ll feel a natural draw towards processes they can reimagine, clients they can woo, or venues where they can serve as a spokesperson for your brand. 

10. What Makes an Enneagram Type Five a Marketing Asset

At Green Apple, we use the Enneagram for team building, during the interview process, and to understand what roles and responsibilities are a natural fit for our team members. This guide to Enneagram Type Fives explores a Type Five’s drive for mastery and excellence, and how that can benefit a marketing team.

Harness The Power of Blogging For Your Brand

Want to learn more about how a keyword-driven blogging strategy can activate the power of your brand? Let Green Apple Strategy craft an innovative approach to your brand’s blog so that you can start targeting and attracting customers today. 

Reach out to us today for a consultation.