If you’ve attended college (or had to pay for it) sometime in the last three decades, you’re probably as frustrated as anyone about the skyrocketing price tag. According to one report, the cost of college has risen 538% since 1985.

When you make a purchase from just about any major eCommerce retailer today, you’ll likely receive a follow-up email (or a series of emails) that deliver a few key pieces of information:

The contracts have been signed, sales has made the handoff to success, the proverbial bags have been packed. We're on our way down the customer journey! Be sure to clear out any obstacles for a well-paved path to singing your praises and repeat purchasing. Do your thank you pages include your referral program? Is there a refer-a-friend pop-up on the home page?

Think about the last time you went mattress shopping. Was it via a referral program and a few clicks later, a mattress folded up in a box arrived at your front step? Or was it in a traditional brick-and-mortar store? What was the latter experience like? Did you get the hard sales pitch about how a particular mattress would suddenly help you capture eight solid hours of sleep each night, and did that salesperson awkwardly hang around as you tested out a mattress? Even worse, if you actually ...

Traditional marketing teaches companies to think of customers as a bridge between inventory and sales. In the age of hypervisibility and technology, brands are adding resources to their marketing stack that allow them to build unique experiences instead of merely monitoring customer behavior. The most successful brands have started to rethink how their customers progress through the eCommerce funnel. For good reason, customers have the potential to become advocates, fans, and referrers of your ...

                    Click for sound                           Many brands are venturing outside of their office and within their network to find early adopters that can take out some of the mass marketing legwork by driving word-of-mouth. For many companies, the ideal marketing campaign is self-sustaining — an organic ripple that migrates throughout target markets and accurately represents your brand.