Author: Tomas Serrano

Active January 1st, 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) was put in place to protect the data and privacy of consumers. It gives California consumers the right to see how businesses use their personal information. Businesses must tell what type of data they are collecting and have to give the consumer the option to say no to them selling their data. If the company has its data breached, the consumer has the right to sue the company.

CCPA applies to companies that:

• Exceed an annual revenue of $25 million.
• Obtain personal information of 50,000 or more California residents, households, or devices per annum.
• Secure 50 percent or more of their annual revenue from selling California residents’ personal information.

You should determine if your company wants to have different privacy items for California residents or have one single united notice. Either way, a large majority of US companies must update their privacy policies to comply with these new rules.

Your company will also have to:

• Review and understand the personal information you have collected
• Know how the consumers’ personal information is collected and confirm that the information sold to third party companies and is shared
• Train present and future employees on how to properly handle customers’ information
• Update your internal and online privacy policies
• Prepare procedures to quickly respond to customers who request access to, deletion from, or information related to the sale or disclosure to their information.
• Review contacts with third-party service providers that have customer information you have given away
• Ensure third-party service providers who have your consumers’ personal information comply with the new CCPA rules
• Prepare tech solutions that process requests made by customers to opt-out of the selling of their information
• Review your internal policies on how the collection of personal information is gathered

This is just the beginning. By 2025, there will be even more states to sign similar legislation giving every US consumer the right to know how their data is being used.

I hope that after reading this you have a grasp on the new rules and regulations that the CCPA has put into effect. If you meet the criteria, don’t wait to make changes, be the first and set the example for others to follow. If you have any questions, please feel free to visit our website and reach out to us. Hope to hear from you soon!

 

The year was 2019 and on this particular foggy October morning, Mr. Joestar, the head of a large software company walked into his office to get his day started. He put down his mug next to the little pumpkin his son carved for him and logged onto his computer.

The day went on as normal, calls being made and emails being sent. Recently, two very intelligent sales representatives, Austin and Sandra, have been closing deals left and right. Neither of them ever asked for bonuses or even a raise, they always pulled their weight and always finished tasks before the deadline. In a nutshell, they were the ideal sales employees. 

Mr. Joestar wanted to give them a little bonus. So he put it on his to-do list, in the meantime, there were major company updates past due that he had to send out to the staff. He wrote them back-to-back, both the bonuses and company updates.

Lunchtime was finally rolling around and all thoughts of work left his mind, all he thought of was the leftover barbeque he was about to have for lunch. He sent out the emails and left his office. 

Mr. Joestar sat down for lunch in the outside patio, opening up his lunch bag and taking out the Tupperware, when Patrick from accounting walked by and said.

“Extremely generous of you, Sir.”

“Anytime, I care for each and every one of my employees!”

Mr. Joestar thought …

“There was nothing on that email about employees, just updating software and a big customer was coming to us… it’s probably nothing.”

He went on with his lunch, not knowing the grievous mistake he had made. Once lunch was over, he walked back into the lobby and told the receptionist.

“We should put fake cobwebs all around here, really get us in the Halloween mood.”

“Absolutely, sir. That’s a great idea.”

Once he got into the elevator and pushed his floor. Carl and Denise from the got on at the 3rd floor and rode up with him. Carl started up a conversation with the boss. 

Carl:

“That email you sent us, I mean.. Wow, thank you, boss.”

Denise:

“Yeah, I can’t wait for it to go through!” 

Mr: Joestar:

“It’s not really that big of a deal, I plan on sending more out like that, hopefully, every month.”

Carl and Denise looked at each other confused and started whispering to one another. Carl was about to tell the boss what he had done, but there was a sudden ding and the doors opened up, and the boss walked out. Everyone seemed to be in a fantastic mood, people were smiling and laughing. Nothing unusual for a Friday afternoon. Joestar walked around the desks of his employees like he always does. 

“Hey, Thanks again, boss”

“You’re the best, boss”

“No one can top you, sir”

But one comment made my Sandra stood out to him.

“We really appreciate the bonus, boss, but why were Austin and I the only ones informed about the new company updates”?

Mr. Joestar stopped in his tracks.

“Excuse me? Can you please repeat that”?

“Well, we all got the email about the bonuses, but it seems that Austin and I were the only ones who got the update email.”

Joestar, pale in the face ran back to his office and logged onto his computer, he opened his email, hoping it wasn’t true. 

He first clicked on the “Company Update” email and looked at the recipient’s, only Austin and Sandra were selected.

He knew what he had done, he clicked on his “You’ve earned this” while reading the recipient’s line he slumped in his chair. The only recipient tagged, was everyone. 

At this moment, Mr. Joestar hears his phone ring, but it’s not his normal ringtone, it’s his morning alarm ringtone.

Mistakes like this happen quite a bit with Marketing Automation. Be sure this nightmare doesn’t happen to you by utilizing the Corrao Group to help set up, and run your marketing campaigns powered by Pardot.

 

 

 

Sometimes, companies make costly mistakes when emailing their customers. These can vary from minor typos to major emails being sent out to the wrong customers. Mistakes like these can lead to emails being sent to spam, businesses not taking them seriously, or email systems blocking them from emailing the company altogether. We’ll review five email marketing mistakes to avoid and how they could be impacting you today.

 

Not Personalizing Content

 One mistake that companies make is not personalizing their emails for their customers. They send out generic copied and pasted email content from inside their system. Customizing email marketing for each customer has many benefits for clients, it shows that you’re dedicated to working with them by spending the time upfront to know their business. It also reassures them that you pay attention and really cares about their needs and how your company can ultimately help them.

Not Optimizing for Mobile

Not optimizing your emails for your mobile customers can result in unread emails. According to Invespcro, “More than ⅔ of emails are being opened on smartphones and tablets” and “75% of smartphone owners use their mobile devices to check their emails”. Like the statistics state, a large portion of customers open and respond to their emails from their phones and not optimizing them to fit for mobile would be a mistake in itself. If emails are opened on mobile and they don’t render well within a few seconds, the customer is onto the next one. 

 

Not Updating Records

Another common mistake is using an old contact list instead of an updated one. Try to keep email lists up to date and routinely clean out the contacts that aren’t engaged with you anymore. Sending emails to old contacts can hurt your email sending reputation, causing future inboxes to flag your emails as spam and negatively impact your deliverability rate. As a marketing best practice, never send content from your marketing automation system to purchased lists. The list could be years old and if you send an email out and 80% hard bounced due to incorrect, or old, email addresses, your system could be shut down. 

 

Poor Subject Lines

Having poor subject lines in your emails can make or break whether or not your customers open them. According to Business News Daily, “the average open rate for emails across all industries analyzed was 20.81%. It’s hard to get consumers to open your emails, and bad subject lines can wreck your chances of boosting your open rate.” Most subject lines should be under 60 characters. People tend to open emails that have a simple, yet knowledgeable subject line. Using relatable wording for different companies can make all the difference as well.

 

Not Paying Attention To Spam Best Practices

There will be times where emails won’t be properly delivered. This is because of the customer’s inbox putting your emails straight into the spam folder. A couple of reasons why this happens comes from not including a physical address in the email, or if you use words that are usually linked to spam content. If you’re curious about whether or not your emails will be marked as spam there are tools, such as Salesforce Pardot, that can help give you feedback on if your email would be spam, and how to fix them if so.

 

 

All of these email marketing mistakes are common, but can easily be avoided if you follow best practices. Being too pushy, emailing un-opted in leads, and sending irrelevant content are also best practices to be aware of. Here at Corrao Group, we are trained in Salesforce Pardot and will help you enhance and maximize all of your marketing emails. If you’re interested in working with us, please feel free to visit our website, and sign up for our newsletter too. Hope to see you there!

When deciding whether or not to host a webinar, it all comes down to the benefits. While in-person meetings are daily events, online webinars give you the chance to market it, increasing outreach and registration. They are also very cost-effective, virtually costing you nothing. We’re going to talk about the best ways you can prepare for a successful webinar such as knowing your customer, putting content first and practicing.

Before you start thinking about your webinar’s topic and content you should get to know your audience beforehand. Knowing what type of problems the audience faces will give you time to brainstorm effective solutions and content. It helps to understand your audience’s challenges as well. What value can your product/service provide to this audience to help rid them of these problems and challenges? While gathering this information about your customers, finding out who they had been working with previously can be helpful during the call. You gain an advantage that other competitors don’t have by knowing what type of service the customers require and how to effectively outmatch them in terms of service. 

By knowing the audience’s pain points and challenges, you can choose a few topics and narrow it down to one. Common mistake hosts make is focusing too much on selling the product/service rather than show its value. A sales-pitch on a webinar is not what your audience came for. Instead, focus on providing valuable content to the audience about how your offering will benefit them, and the sales will follow. Your offering is great and the audience just needs to collect additional information, it all comes down to how it’s communicated.

As they say, practice makes perfect. A large portion of a webinar is speaking, so creating notecards and adding footnotes will help you maintain a nice and calm figure during the live presentation. Practicing with coworkers is essential, they are your best friends and hardest critics in these situations. They’ll give you specific feedback that will make you a stronger host. Don’t be afraid to record and show others your presentation to gain additional feedback. One thing that will happen after the presentation is a Q&A, but don’t worry—if you’ve practiced enough you’ll have all the answers in your head. 

Statistics show using webinars can lead to a 30% increase in sales when leads are actively engaged, and according to an article written by Sam Holzman, “73% of B2B marketers and sales leaders say webinars are the best way to generate high-quality leads”. Here at Corrao Group, these tips mentioned are just the start to the hundreds of tips out there. We’d love to help you create your one of a kind presentation. If you’re interested in working with us please feel free to visit our website and reach out to us and leave a comment on your favorite way to prepare for a webinar. Hope to hear from you soon!