Business and Marketing

More than 60% of surveyed executives cite email marketing as their leading producer of ROI.

Like a child overwhelmed by choice when visiting a candy store, marketers have a tasty selection of channels to reach customers today. But like that same child who will choose his go-to treat most of the time, many marketers have a favorite, as well. According to a recent study by Campaigner, more than 60% of executives surveyed say email marketing is their leading producer of ROI. Just over a quarter (26%) of respondents cites social media as tops for ROI, and 25% say SEO is the sweetest. Offline direct marketing was the top source of ROI for 20% of businesses.

In terms of how respondents define email marketing success, 41% cite click-through rates as the most important metric and 38% say opens are their leading indicator of email success.

Not surprisingly, respondents plan to increase their investments in email and social in 2015. More than three quarters (76%) of the executives surveyed say they plan to invest in email marketing next year, while 33% plan to invest in social media. More than half of respondents (53%) cite higher click-through rates as their top email marketing priority in 2015; and 20% plan to do more to integrate email and social.

Despite the continuous innovation in marketing-tech and related areas, only 10% of executives survey believe that new technologies will impact their marketing strategies in 2015. For example, 87% of respondents don't think that Apple Pay will affect their marketing approach next year. Further, 36% of those surveyed expect no impact on their marketing from tech innovations, and 39% say they're currently researching the potential impact.

Of the few who do think that new technology will impact marketing strategies next year, 49% plan to make no changes to their mobile marketing in 2015 in response to increasing customer expectations in that area. And it seems that marketers are getting their fill of data, as well. Only 14% of respondents say they want to improve data collection and management next year.

Business Breaking News: Facebook Makes Trending Topics Mobile-Friendly

Using Facebook on a mobile device just got a whole lot trendier — trending topics, that is.

Like its counterpart on Twitter, Facebook's "Trending" section is where many users go to keep up with what's going on in the news and to see what's popular on the Web each day. The company launched Trending on its website in January 2014, but mobile users had no way to access it. Now, mobile Facebookers can get their news on the go, too.

In addition to coming to mobile devices, Trending is getting quite the upgrade. Conversations about trending topics will be organized in up to five different sections, according to Facebook's news blog. These sections include the following:

Commodity Online News: Fresh buying seen in RM Seed trading range 4025 4109