In this week’s Five on Friday, Business2Community recommends three SaaS applications that we should all be using, IAB releases its first ‘Podcast Playbook,’ a buyer’s guide for podcast advertising, Media Post shares highlights of a recent report from Iterable with email tactics used by subscription box companies, BuzzSumo tells us that Facebook engagement for brands and publishers is down 20 percent this year, and Moz offers five strategies for keyword research in 30 minutes or less.

3 SaaS Applications You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

According to Business2Community, the SaaS market will grow to $164 billion by 2022, and while the industry is in growth mode, we not yet seen all of the possibilities emerge. To prove their point, Dale McIntyre points out three applications for SaaS that we may not be aware of yet:

1. Disaster recovery services. If your subscription company hasn’t already prepared for the worst, Hurricane Harvey is a good reminder that we are all vulnerable. With disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) though, companies of any size have access to software that can act as a virtual server and get your company up and running in short order. The beauty of this SaaS option is that you can outsource this task, freeing up your IT department, assuming you have one, to focus on other important functions.
2. Print management services. Companies that utilize cloud-based print management services have a better understanding of their needs and costs associated with printing.
3. Energy management services. Monitor your subscription company’s energy usage in real time to identify patterns and opportunities where you can save money. Receive alerts and get reports to help you analyze and fine-tune your usage.

For more on these applications, read the original article, ‘3 SaaS Applications You Aren’t Using (But Should Be)’ on Business2Community here.

IAB Releases First ‘Podcast Playbook’ for Advertisers

Last week the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) published its first Podcast Playbook, a buyer’s guide for podcast advertising. The new guide offers insights into audience demographics, listener behaviors, creative, ad formats, delivery and targeting, ROI and more. Why is this needed? Nearly one-fourth of U.S. listeners over age 12 listen to podcasts monthly, and on average, they subscribe to six podcasts a week.

This is big business to advertisers. In fact, according to IAB research, podcast advertising revenue will grow to $220 million this year, an 85 percent increase over last year. Other interesting podcast data from IAB:

• Forty-four percent of podcast listeners are under 34
• Podcast listeners tend to be educated, wealthy and be business influencers.

‘This playbook will serve as a go-to reference guide to help brand marketers understand podcasts and effectively steer more ad dollars toward opportunities that will deliver in terms of audience reach,’ said Anna Bager, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mobile and Video, IAB. ‘In an industry where explosive growth and dramatic change have been endemic, podcasts are having a standout moment. We want to educate marketers on the unique and valuable benefits of advertising on the medium.’

Read more about IAB’s new Podcast Playbook here.

Media Post and Iterable: Email Habits of Top 100 Subscription Retailers

According to a Hitwise study quoted by Media Post, traffic to subscription company websites grew nearly 3000 percent between 2013 and 2016. This niche market is continuing to grow with new players joining the fray all the time, and with big name acquisitions in the works. Because these companies don’t have brick-and-mortar storefronts, they rely on social media and other digital marketing tools to share their brands.

One of those tools is sending email and mobile messages, and Iterable recently researched the top 100 subscription retailers and identified these email habits of subscription box companies:

• 68 percent sent welcome emails, but only 28 percent sent more than one email
• 21 percent sent two emails
• 7 percent sent three emails or more
• 3 out of 4 sent out a blast campaign during the 3-week study period. These mass emails had limited, if any, segmentation or personalization.
• The average number of blast emails sent to active subscribers was 3.8 emails in one week.
• Fashion and beauty brands sent an above-average number of blast emails each week.
• 1/5 of retailers had at least one of their emails delivered to a spam folder
• Of that 1/5, 89 percent with deliverability issues used Microsoft Outlook

For more results and a link to the Iterable results, read the original article on Media Post here.

Research: Facebook Engagement for Brands & Publishers Has Dropped 20% This Year

According to a recent article by Steve Rayson for Buzzsumo, the average number of engagements with Facebook posts by brands and publishers is down more than 20 percent since the beginning of the year. In their study, they analyzed over 880 million Facebook posts, and the average number of engagements dropped from 340 to 264 during the first six months of the year. The data shows that the biggest drop was with posts including images and links. Video posts had the smallest decrease. Rayson offered several possible reasons for the decrease in engagement:

1. Brands and publishers spent less money on promotion during this time period, resulting in reduced engagement.
2. Organic reach on Facebook has dropped significantly and an increase in paid promotion has not made up for it.
3. Facebook says there is more content now, so there is competition for content appearing in a user’s feed.
4. Like Google, Facebook is always tinkering with its algorithm, so it can be challenging for brands and publishers to determine how to ‘feed’ that algorithm.

For more on the decline in engagement, read Rayson’s original article, ‘Facebook Engagement for Brands and Publishers Falls 20% in 2017,’ on Buzzsumo.

5 Strategies for Keyword Research in 30 Minutes or Less

How would you like to grow your subscription company’s audience while engaging them on a deeper level? You can with 30 minutes of keyword research, says Britney Muller in ‘The Lazy Writer’s Guide to 30-Minute Keyword Research‘ for Moz. Muller explains that, while quality content is important, building content based on keyword data can help drive traffic to your website. She offers five broad strategies for identifying your keywords:

1. Blog category keyword research – evaluate top industry websites to see what blog categories they use, use advanced Google tools to get more detailed info., and try Google Suggest and Google Keyword Planner.
2. FAQ keyword research – identify the most commonly searched-for questions by using AnswerthePublic.com or the Moz Keyword Explorer.
3. Competitive content research – evaluate your competitor’s top 10 most popular pages on SimilarWeb.com. Evaluate each of their top pages and identify three takeaways.
4. Expand your keyword reach – Expand topical content. Start by downloading MozBar, a Chrome add-on, and identify additional topics that will provide value for your readers.
5. Keep up with Google – Muller said there is a big rise in ‘no-click’ searches, meaning people Google something like the weather for their city and they get the answer without having to go to a website. To counter that, understand which search features will appear for your keywords and brainstorm better content based on that data.

For more insights and keyword research hacks, read the full article on Moz here.

We hope the weather in Texas and Louisiana clears this weekend, and that there is plenty of sunshine and hope to overshadow the despair of this week. Have a safe weekend. We’ll be back bright and early next week!