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If you follow marketing thought leaders or read best practice blogs, you’ve seen the evolving roster of trending ways to spread the word about your business. Beneath every trendy marketing buzzword lies a metric milestone that your company wants to surpass or a barrier that you need to break. But somewhere between the viral headlines and virtual tips, successful companies are digging deep to engage customers and drive revenue.

In a perfect social media world, your clients, followers, readers, and subscribers would hunt you down for new information, comment incessantly, and become loyal fans in the matter of minutes it takes to devour a new piece of content. Your queue would also fill up with perfectly edited and backlinked new content in sweet conjunction with the editorial calendar, creating a consistent pulse of branded content. Sounds nice, right? Well, come back down to earth.

So, I have a confession to make.

A year ago, I had no clue “referral marketing” was anything but a buzzword. I certainly didn’t know referral marketing software existed. Sure, I understood the value of referrals (I’ve been a marketer for many years — it’s hard not to understand the value of organic word-of-mouth). But referral marketing? In my experience, referrals weren’t truly optimizable or scalable — two core characteristics of any modern marketing strategy.

Marketing changes every day. Just a few years a ago, a flashy street-side sign advertising your company’s name and location was enough to attract new business. Even a print ad in the Sunday paper was sure to remind your closest prospective customers to stop by your brick-and-mortar store. Over the last few years, marketing – along with its platforms, audiences, and capabilities – has advanced.

We had such a great response to our recent epic referral email rundown that we had to do another one. This time, we dug into our own customer archives to share emails that are expertly optimized to drive referrals.

In the last year, publishing powerhouses have sent a wave of frenzied readers in the direction of their competitors as iconic magazines like Jet Magazine, Lucky Magazine and Details shut down for good. In the midst of other indefinite mergers and layoffs, it’s safe to say that the publishing industry is still reeling from the recession’s tumultuous media landscape. Even as today’s editorial teams reach for the hottest writers and coolest social media platforms, it seems like the publishing problem may be more than content-deep.

Welcome to the digital content creation club! You’ve double-checked your spelling, triple-checked your facts, and confirmed that each hyperlink opens up in a new window. Now, prepare for one of the most gratifying, yet fleeting moments of your entire life (or afternoon). It’s finally time to press the publish button and share your ideas with the world. Publishing a new piece of content may seem like the finish line, but in the grand scheme of your content promotion strategy, it’s just the beginning.

The marketing industry is shifting toward a customer-centric, solution-seeking, data-driven model and marketers are encouraged to follow suit. Marketers have to know how to crunch numbers, spot trends, spark interest, make changes, and make connections – all while surpassing the competition.

Imagine that a customer has just discovered your brand. They think that your company is on to something amazing. They know exactly which friends, family members and colleagues would benefit from this information. They reach for the nearest electronic device, but without a referral program in place, it’s up to them to decide how they’ll share the good news.

The term search engine optimization, aka SEO, is one that most marketers generally nod their heads toward. In fact, according to a Fleishman-Hillard and Harris Interactive Annual Global Study, “89% of customers begin their buying process with a search engine.” We know the value of this popular marketing channel, and we understand the importance of including it as part of our overall marketing strategy, but why is it that SEO is still a giant mystery to most marketers?