Tag Archives: email

Why You Need to Look into Visual Marketing

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Why You Need to Look into Visual Marketing

Visual marketing is coming to a screen near you. The truth is, it’s already there! The practice of using videos, images and other content connected with some visual element, (such as blog posts) is getting huge attention now as these mediums show themselves capable of driving far more traffic and sales than just text. The social world we live in fosters near-instant sharing of our visual content which, as we know, can go widespread in seconds.

Since we now know that the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and 80 percent of visual content sticks with us as opposed to 20 percent of textual, it ought to be no surprise that visual marketing is responsible for 84 percent more views and 94 percent more clicks than text.

How to make your own visual marketing work

Utilize the social media image giants – There are several social media networks that join the visual aspect with a thriving and vibrant social media community. The big ones that come to mind are Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. All have visual capacity that boggles the mind.

Make sure to add a visual aspect to your other content – Blog posts with images get clicked on far more than ones that don’t, and shares are correspondingly higher as well. There are many places to find great visuals, or you can make your own with tools like Canva and PicMonkey.

Optimize images and videos – Be sure you optimize visual content with appropriate titles and keywords. This will not just help them rank better in the search results, but also allow people to discover them with a keyword search.

Create Slideshows and Infographics – Two of the most highly trafficked and search engine popular visual content sources are document sharing site like Slideshare.net and infographics. Both are shared widely and can generate an avalanche of traffic and visitors. Slideshows are super easy to create, and infographics are becoming that way.

Okay, let me provide you with one more bit of stunning data that will get you thinking: Were you aware that the average Pinterest user clocks an average of 1 hour and 17 minutes on the site compared to 36 minutes on Twitter and 12.1 minutes on Facebook? Let’s hear it for visual content!

Email Newsletter Metrics You Need to be Keeping Abreast Of

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Want to Gauge Your Email Newsletter’s Effectiveness? Here’s Some Metrics to Use

You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to build a visually attractive, content-rich email newsletter that’s your pride and joy. So, how’s that helping you?

There are several email metrics that apply directly to this, and keeping track of them will provide you with a leg up when you’re tweaking and optimizing for better results. Let’s examine some of these metrics and how you should understand them.

Newsletter metrics you need to monitor

  • Track your clicks and especially conversions – We assume you’re doing this work for a good reason, so it’s imperative to know how many of your readers are clicking and converting, no matter what you’re your conversion goals are. This is your money stat.
  • Monitor your bounce rates – A bounce rate is merely the number of emails that aren’t successfully delivered. You could have a “hard” bounce, which is when you have a bad address, or a “soft bounce”, where the inbox may be full or unavailable, or maybe a server issue. Your email provider will quickly let you know when your bounce rates are too high.
  • Check your open rates – Although not as vital as some of the other metrics, purely by virtue of the fact that there’s really no way to get a “real” accurate number because of image loads, it’s still worth using this as a guideline. An average email open rate is usually in the range of 15-20 percent, dependant upon the industry and the type of email.
  • Low delivery rates and high spam complaints – Your email delivery rate should be no less than 95 percent, and if that’s not the case, there might be a problem with dead addresses, or maybe your email provider. As far as spam goes, if you are getting more than 1 percent of spam complaints, you’ll very likely be sidelined by your email provider, because they take this very seriously.
  • Keep a watchful eye on unsubscribes – It’s normal to have people unsubscribe from your lists occasionally and for any number of good and bad reasons. What you should know is that a typical unsubscribe rate is less than 1 percent, and if you’re anywhere near 5 percent, you need to find out why. Your messages may have slipped off purpose, or here’s a topical one; your emails aren’t optimized for mobile! Since now half of all email is read on mobile, you need to make certain of this one.

Find your customers where they live: on their mobile device

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Have you implemented a mobile marketing strategy yet?

We’ve all heard that consumers are making a large switch to doing business on their mobile devices, but what does this mean really? What steps do we have to take as merchants and vendors to reach the mobile masses as they roam the streets, looking for deals they can use?

So why not take a closer look at how the mobile consumer is behaving with their myriad of devices these days, and then look at how you can reasonably take advantage of that.

A quick look at mobile marketing numbers

  • It’s official: fully more than half of all emails are now opened on a mobile device
  • A whopping 74 percent of shoppers are using their mobile devices to research before they buy
  • While a large percentage, 82 percent, still venture into your store to make the purchase, 26 percent manage to seal the deal from their phone.
  • And they’re not waiting around! 55 percent of mobile shoppers want to purchase in an hour, and 83 percent within 24 hours!

Mobile consumers have hastened the buying cycle considerably. Also, they are increasingly more likely to complete the complete cycle right from their mobile device.

So what to do to reach the mobile market

There are a few essentials that marketers looking to take advantage of the mobile market should make sure to do. Have a fully optimized mobile version of your site, and that’s made even better if it comes with a shopping app. The site ought to be simple, fast and easy to load, and available across all platforms.

Secondly, there are plenty of opportunities now within the mobile ad space. Make use of the large inventories of available ads and the relatively low prices you’ll find there. In addition, always be on the lookout for new ways to reach the mobile user. One recent one that’s very promising is retargeting via Facebook ads.

Mobile marketing is a great tool to add to your marketing mix. You audience is already using it, shouldn’t you be?

How to Rate Your Suppliers and Shippers

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A major factor in the health and profitability of your business is your relationship with the suppliers and vendors that are supplying you and your customers with products and services. Nowadays when competition is so intense, and time is critical, it’s more important than ever before to have a handle on the vendors and suppliers who work with you. You absolutely need systems set up that not only help you determine whether or not a particular vendor may be right for you, but also keep your business properly protected. This goes for online businesses as well, especially if you are outsourcing services.

Evaluating your vendors or suppliers from the very beginning!

The best way to go about giving your company the best shot possible at a great vendor/supplier relationship is to be sure to do your work at the beginning. Take the time necessary to adequately vet a possible vendor or supplier, and look for possible red flags. Examples of the questions you need answers to include:

  • How long have you been in business?
  • Who are some of your customers?
  • How many employees?
  • How busy are you?
  • How focused on my company will you be?
  • Who will I be working with?
  • What happens when there’s an emergency?
  • How do I know you’ll come through when I need you?

Put accountability systems in place

This relationship needs to be productive for all concerned. For this reason, it’s essential you put accountability systems into position to ensure everyone is doing their part. Create solid performance parameters that clearly state what is expected, and stick with them. Examine these criteria routinely, and don’t let under-performance issues go undetected. Always make sure you have a quality management system in place. Don’t trust your business to anyone who lets the inmates run the asylum!

Don’t hesitate to move on!

Sometimes it simply doesn’t succeed, and you need to be decisive when it requires changing vendors or suppliers. Don’t allow a bad situation to get even worse; your success depends on it!

Attract Visitors with Content Marketing

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Attract Visitors with Content Marketing

Did you know that more than 70 percent of consumers prefer getting to know a company via content marketing rather than ads? Still brands spend more on advertising than on content creation, according to ContentPlus. Is this to do with really trusting the content marketing model, or more a reflection of the need to generate traffic and leads more rapidly? The answer: probably some of both. Content marketing is without question the best vehicle for establishing your authority and brand. The thing is it can be a lot of work. Furthermore, it may take considerably longer to find out whether your content is delivering in terms of leads and sales, as opposed to advertising traffic.

Content marketing is an essential part of the success of your business!

While it can be difficult and time-consuming, if you wish to develop your brand into a long-term success, you have to sell out to making content marketing a significant piece of your online marketing. But how do you make it work for you? With all the new content arriving daily, what can you do to make yours stick out from the herd?

5 Tips for effective content marketing

  1. Give them what they want and need! – Find out what your site readers want to read, and provide it.  You can do this by asking them directly, or using things like your Google Analytics account for clues as to your best performing pages.
  2. Create substantive content – Google search results are dominated by longer, more meaty content. This kind of content is also apt to be shared much more often.
  3. Attempt to answer questions with your content – A surefire way to please your readership is as simple as answering their questions. Here’s how one pool company did it. By making it your mission to be helpful, you can become the go-to source for them.
  4. Employ Google – Making use of the Google authorship feature, as well as the other advantages of Google will help your pages with not just search rankings and traffic, but authority as well.
  5. Encourage sharing – Sharing your content is a terrific source of backlinks and website traffic. All of us want more of those. Another reason to share is because now social signals are integral to Google’s search ranking algorithm.

Getting smart right now about content marketing could minimize the need to have to buy that traffic down the road. Something to think about!

How to Optimize Your Facebook Page for Mobile Devices

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Since huge numbers of people are making Facebook a frequent daily stop, and more than 50 percent of them are using a mobile device for it, perhaps it’s wise for us to take a look at how our Facebook business page is being shown to the public. If you require more coaxing, now some 79% of smartphone users use their phones to go shopping, with 74% making a purchase as a result. Since Facebook creates a mobilized version of your Facebook page, you might have thought that’s all there was to it. Would that were so! Let’s take a peek at some things you should be aware of.

Look at how your Facebook Page is rendered on a mobile device

Facebook creates a summarized version of your web page that is served to the public via their mobile devices. It’s important that you take a moment and discover how this looks. The first part of your Facebook page that is rendered is your Timeline, although, and this is important: not all of it. That’s why you’ll need to make sure you have a “pinned” post, so that it will be featured first and most prominently. After this is the Recommendations and Check-Ins section, and then photos, and lastly, your most recent post.

A few ways to help optimize your Facebook Page

  • Keep in mind that you have far less time and space on Mobile to acquire the attention of your visitors. Take pains to use smaller, eye-catching photos, and to not mince words! Be brief and direct in your text and particularly any calls to action.
  • “Pin” a post you want to show up first in your mobile timeline, as this will ensure it does.
  • Log into your Facebook page from a mobile device and see that your important info is not only there but correct. You need people to manage to find you! This can be done using “Facebook Nearby”.
  • One way to improve social word of mouth is to stimulate check-ins from your location. This makes a big difference with Facebook.
  • Engage with your visitors while you are on your mobile device, and this is not just convenient for you, but helps you keep on top of activity on your page easily.

Make Adding Value Your Mission!

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In the past, it was quite often enough to slap up a site and open for business, and you’d most likely do okay. No longer. Competition is keen, and those that don’t understand or know that delivering value is the principal goal of any business online are going to find themselves scrambling to make ends meet. This is especially true in relation to marketing via email or social media. Let’s take a look at why this is so.

Why you need to prize value

The principal reason is it helps your brand stand out in a sea of mediocrity. Monitor conversations online and you’ll see, for the most part, two types: ones that slam a business or product and ones that effuse praise. Everything else is ignored. Making these people talk about both you and your brand in a positive light is your job, and the most effective way to do that is by over-delivering. That can happen in many ways. It could mean delivering unannounced bonuses, sales, appreciation gifts and more. Each of these can delight the customer, who will in turn share their experience as well as return for more!

Why email and social media are special cases

When it comes to marketing using email or social media, slightly different rules apply. You are held to higher standards here. Whereas your website is expected to sell, email and social media are a bit trickier. While both of them are still technically permission-based, neither audience is keen on endless marketing messages, and can revolt by unsubscribing or un-following you. While email has long been a marketing vehicle, increased competition and a social media trained audience demand that you deliver value. This in fact helps, as it builds the know, like and trust factors so essential in creating a lifelong customer. In social media, the secret is to get them intrigued enough in your brand or products that they wish to opt in and go to the next level with you. Once you’ve learned the art of subtle persuasion and managed to get them on your email lists, they’ll be far more open to hear your marketing messages.

Make value your mission! If you do this, regardless of what medium you are working in, you’ll find a far more responsive and loyal crowd!