Marketing – Page 3

Why Your Small Business Needs a Website

July 1, 2015 Beth Devine

small businesses need a website — “Smart cat” by Lori, used under CC BY / Modified from original

Your small business needs an online presence to survive. Without a website, people won’t be able to find you. I mean that literally. We live in a world where we Google before we shop, before we get in our car and drive anywhere new.

Gone are the days of phone book white pages and oversized Rand McNally road maps. When you’re looking for a place to buy the world’s best cat litter, you don’t search in outdated formats. You’re going to ask Google, use your GPS, and set course to the best deal in town.

To Beat Your Competition

So what happens if people don’t find what they’re looking for online? They’ll go to the competition, that’s what. Not having an online presence means you’re not being found, which means you’re losing out on business opportunities.

Having a website shows you’re a legitimate business. Having a professional, updated, easy-to-navigate website shows you’re the type of business who cares about your product or service. Who would you be more likely to buy from, a sloppy, outdated website, or one that reflects a business with a progressive website?

To help promote your business, make sure your business site is connected to all the relevant sites: the three top search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Bing; and other online directories such as Yelp, Merchant Circle, Yellow Pages, Trip Advisor, and BBB. Depending on your business, there are a variety of online sites who will list you for free.

Business discovery sites like these are what help you get found. Without a website, there is no information for indexing programs to share with potential customers who are searching online. Your first impression is often your website, so don’t give the wrong one with an unavailable URL.

Here are three good reasons why your small business needs a website:

To Give Your Customers Convenience

People shop differently in today’s digital age. Window shopping is occurring online more and more, competing with an afternoon stroll down Main Street. And when customers are ready to buy, they’re more likely to research their next purchase through the help of Yelp or Google or Shopzilla.

According to comScore’s quarterly State Of Retail report, online shopping reached a total of $61.6 billion in Q2 2014, up 13%, accounting for 11.6% of consumers’ spending for both mobile and desktop.

People want to use the internet to research, compare, and buy. And it’s not just individual customers who are doing this. The 2014 State of B2B Procurement Study shows that 94 percent of businesses are doing some type of online research as well.

It’s never been more convenient to shop when the digital world of products and services is no further away than your keyboard. Without a website, your small business isn’t providing customers with the convenience of easy shopping.

Before they can shop online, they have to find you. We already know how that’s going to work out if you don’t have a URL address. Give your customers an online printable map option, embed a Google map, and make sure you provide a street address as well as email and phone number on your website.

Think of your website as your digital business card, complete with a full-color brochure attached. Can you imagine someone showing up to your business and not handing them one or both of these? Even when a customer forgets your business card, they can find you online. You’ll never run out or misplace it, the information can be easily updated, and the content can exceed any printed format.

To Build Relationships With Your Followers

Having a Facebook page is a great way to help build relationships with your followers. But without a website to link to, you’re sending the message that you’re not that interested.

Through a website, your small business can send regular e-newsletters and stay in touch with blog posts. Sending emails is a great way to offer discounts and specials on your services or products. By establishing a relationship through these channels via your website, you can develop a relationship of trust.

One reason e-commerce won’t replace brick-and-mortar stores is due to the trust that’s forged from a perceived sense of permanence, reliability, and familiarity. In order to convey a similar degree of security to your website visitors, your website must be designed to show that you’re thinking like your customer. Studies continue to show, for example, that free shipping and speed of delivery increases online sales, not low prices alone.

Substituting online for what you can’t give tangibly in order to create a relationship involves using all the tools available, from a site designed to meet your customer’s needs, to using social media, to answering common questions with blogs and helpful site content. Don’t forget to include testimonials in strategic locations that demonstrate your customer loyalty and satisfaction.

You Need a Team of One

Your small business website needs to appear as if you have a team of professionals who are working to keep your online presence active and available. This appearance is achieved far more easily than keeping your physical storefront polished and inviting. The only team you need is you, and your web hosting company for any additional website work.

You don’t need to update your website everyday, or even every week. New content management systems like WordPress make it a quick job to stay on top of things. With the support of your web hosting company, you can present a professional and engaging website with minimal maintenance.

5 Reasons You Can’t Do Without Online Newsletters

May 19, 2015 Beth Devine

The online newsletter continues to confound and perform after decades of relentless community building and information sharing. It has been called the cockroach of the Internet, the goose that laid the golden egg, tried-and-true, a direct line of communication, old-school artifact, the workhorse of nonprofits, and, perhaps most eloquently, “hand-curated pipes for mainlining quality Internet directly into our veins.” (Thank you for that, The Kernel.)

As a vein-clogging, direct line into our email inboxes, the online newsletter is a tool that will build your business and develop your brand image. Despite the Snapchatters and Whatsappers and Instagrammers out there, there is a time and a place where emailing your online newsletter is without rival.

Here are five reasons you can’t do without an online newsletter:

1. It’s easy to personalize and customize as part of your marketing plan.

Competing with Facebook isn’t so hard with a personalized newsletter. When you customize your newsletter so it contains personalized recommendations, the reader’s name, and reader-designated content, you’re more likely to keep your audience’s attention.

Newsletters tend to come before everything else in terms of self-interest. As David Carr writes in The New York Times, “It makes sense. My personal digital hierarchy, which I assume is fairly common, goes like this: email first, because it is for and about me; social media next, because it is for and about me, my friends and professional peers; and finally, there is the anarchy of the web, which is about, well, everything.”

As an addition to Facebook and other social media, the online newsletter is a way to personally connect with your audience and be an important part of your larger marketing plan.

2. It keeps your audience informed (and entertained).

Your newsletters are designed to do more than keep your readers connected. Your audience is reading to learn more and receive something valuable. Whether it’s helpful information, up-to-date news on your brand, or a discount or reward, your newsletter is an effective way to continue the relationship with ongoing communication.

By continuing to offer your audience something useful, you’re showing them that the’re valuable and haven’t been forgotten. You already know that your readers are interested because they’ve signed up for your newsletters, so be sure to give them something useful.

3. It’s a low-cost way to reach a large number of subscribers.

Small businesses and nonprofits can’t dispute the low-cost, pennies per message advantage to online newsletters. When you have a marketing budget, newsletters are the lost-cost choice over other marketing channels like direct mail and search engine advertising.

You can easily send out a new edition of your newsletter to a target audience of thousands of people, whenever you choose and as frequently as you want.

4. It’s a simple way to be mobile-friendly.

Without having to invest in new technology, you are instantly mobile-friendly with online newsletters. Email allows you to reach your audience on all types of mobile devices in an increasingly mobile-centric society.

A Forrester Research study shows that “on average, 42% of retailers’ email opens now happen on smartphones, up from 28% in 2013, while email open rates on tablets grew from 16% to 17%.”

When seeking mobile-friendly communication, texts are the competing alternative. But email newsletters are free to your audience where texts can incur a charge, and email gives much more space for your message in comparison to texts.

5. It’s the best way to grab your audience’s attention.

So what’s worth paying attention to when there is a never-ending supply of information? Most people are lazy when it comes to searching out content that interests them. By having it show up in their inboxes, reading content that your audience selected just got a lot easier.

No need to go looking for what they might like. Newsletters make sifting through the endless stream of online information easier for your readers. When your newsletter arrives, they recognize the sender, know you as a trusted source, and are confident that this is content they’re seeking.

If you like what you read, feel to share using our social media buttons!

How to Convert Website Traffic into Leads

March 18, 2015 Beth Devine

If you sell a product or service online, the big question that arises is, “How do I convert website traffic into leads?” Turning traffic into leads begins at the top of the marketing funnel, where discovery happens.

The all-important secret to your business begins right here. By understanding who your audience is and what their needs are, you can direct your website traffic. Know who your audience is and it will help you with the following ways to turn traffic into leads:

Share Content Your Audience Actually Cares About

Cater to your audience by creating content that they’re interested in. Speak to the humans who are looking for answers. Use the term “you” as if you’re talking directly to them and their personal needs.

Use blogs as an online tool to share this content, making it easier for search engines to find your brand when your topics are Googled and searched. According to research by HubSpot, the average company that blogs generates 55% more website visitors, 126% more leads, 97% more inbound links, and has 434% more indexed pages.

Use social media as a no-pay way to get attention as news feeds screech to a scrolling halt when they spy your eye-catching posts. Remember to communicate on each platform in the appropriate manner, including visuals whenever you can. Share your blog post links and photos, as well as entertaining items meant to capture your brand’s identity.

Writing and sharing your content is a critical step in getting your audience’s attention. You’re letting them know where to go for future information and entertainment value.

Keywords That Cater to the SERPS

You’ve heard the terms before: relevant, targeted, and organic keywords. It means using pertinent keywords to use in your site copy so your audience will find your brand in search results and ultimately land on your website.

Think about these keywords as you create copy. Optimized content helps with not only being discovered, but it’s proof that you’re knowledgeable and capable in solving the problems your audience is searching for answers to.

Somewhere out there they are looking for you. Help them to find you with a roadmap of keywords.

Offer Your Audience Something Compelling

They’ve discovered you at last. So what’s next?

This is where CTAs come into play. Call-to-actions are the go-to buttons for a compelling offer. These offers can be any type of freebie from a newsletter option to an ebook. Include the CTAs on your social media platforms, your promotional emails, and your landing pages.

Ask your audience for the most minimal information, their first and last name, and their email, allowing you to make future contact while giving them the opportunity to learn more about a program, sign up for a demo, download a white paper, watch a webinar, or get the deal. See Hubspot’s great CTA examples for a terrific source of inspiration.

If you include a CTA in your social media, it’s a good idea to use a URL shortener when you post a link that takes them to the landing page or designated form. CTAs are the most straightforward way to turn traffic into leads, so include them whenever it’s appropriate.

For your landing pages, CTAs are included as part of a clear and specific form, as detailed in Get Better Form Conversion With These 10 Tips. Don’t forget to label your CTA button with something besides “submit.”

Include an Email Subscription Offer on Your Blog

You’ve worked hard on your blog posts. Don’t let that effort go to waste.

Include an offer to subscribe in all your blog posts as a logical way to continue giving value. Take this database of email addresses, add them to your marketing email program, and grow your leads and attract potential customers.

Effective CTAs in your blog will help end your post with a bang. An enticing, concise call to action invites your readers to take a specific step by clicking on a button, or on a few lines of well-written text at the end of your post.

Make the invite as seamless as possible. Try something simple: “Like what you’ve read? Join us for our email update each week by adding your email to the form on the right.”

Or try something sassy: “Pssst. Want access to our blog updates each week and be in the know before all your friends have the scoop? Sign up here with your email and we’ll keep this our little secret.”

So what are you going to work on? How will you keep your content filled with inviting ways to turn traffic into leads?

Do You Know These 5 Marketing Trends for 2015?

January 30, 2015 Beth Devine

It’s important to look back over the previous year and reflect on what you did that was successful, significant, or slipshod. Thinking backwards has its uses, but thinking forwards is a good opportunity to see how you fit into what’s expected.

Here are five marketing trends gleaned from the web that make the most sense for small businesses in 2015.

Content Marketing That Matters

The amount of free online content continues to overwhelm us. Your customers are probably growing bored, overstimulated, and underwhelmed. The answer is not to create more content to try and win attention.

The answer to today’s online content overload is marketing with a content strategy. Whereas the old mantra was “always be closing,” today’s could be “always be publishing,” but publishing with a focus.

Give your customers and prospects content that they can’t get elsewhere, is targeted to meet their interests, and is well-planned and well-written. Look to other industries for inspiration, including their social media pages. Check out their Pinterest, Facebook, blogs, and Twitter accounts to fuel your ideas for quality content.

Go Social or Bust

The social media landscape is continually changing. Small businesses must stay tuned to what platforms are the most relevant to your brand.

Where your brand should focus its presence is based on one simple fact: where your customers are. Knowing which platforms to avoid and which to engage in is even more critical as changes in Facebook and Twitter limit the reach of your pages and push business users to use paid advertisements.

Know the emerging technologies and where to look for your customers. Trends include messaging services like Snapchat, growing in popularity with 1 billion Snapchat stories viewed every day. The new social media darling is Instagram, the mobile photo-sharing site that is attracting users and investors by the truckload.

Watch for analytics to become available to marketers through more social platforms. As with Facebook, which offers Page Insights after you receive thirty likes, expect to see Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr do something similar.

Measure With Analytics

As the wave of social media analytics grows, it is important to take advantage of the digital data that is available. If it’s digital, it’s measurable, giving you critical understanding of product-market fit, user experience, customer behavior, and more.

Getting the right focus is the challenge. Using metrics to help you make the best decisions involves measuring many different things, including open rates, number of followers, and traffic. Focusing on what variables connect to revenue and growth is key.

Facebook recently added conversion lift to its analytics platform, allowing advertisers to measure conversion rates from digital ads. This tool is one example of how data can be used to help you focus your online efforts and your advertising dollars.

Less Words, More Visuals

Using less words and more visuals continues to be the trend for 2015. As non-professionals increasingly use smartphone cameras to shoot videos and photos with instant results, the potential for marketing also grows.

Visual storytelling is growing, and social media is quick to jump on board. Facebook was first to push video, with Instagram’s 15-second video quick to follow. Now Twitter is launching native video, giving users application-ready viewing and playing of videos as a way to add to the conversation.

Twitter already figured out how short our attention span is: 2.8 seconds to be exact, or how long it takes us to read approximtely 140 characters. 90% of information that your brain receives is visual, with visuals processed 60,000 times faster than text.

If you haven’t already, begin adding more visuals to your website and social media. Your content is being consumed by people who favor images, so that’s what you have to give them.

The IoT (Internet of Things)

Mobile data is continuing to expand with user-friendly options that will include wearable devices. The technology being used to transfer data over a network in devices such as heart monitors and automobile sensors is surfacing in smart watches and exercise bands, and is expected to become more popular as new solutions develop.

The IoT is a vast communication network of more than 25 billion objects, all online and gathering information, and using sensors to correspond with each other. Collecting data and sending it has never been easier.

It’s not always about knowing how this will affect your marketing. Sometimes it’s just about being aware of the newest breed of online connection and understanding what consumers are interested in. Anticipating marketing trends will help you move towards a more connected future where you’re prepared to address challenges as early as you can.

How to Create a Presentation That Counts

January 10, 2015 Beth Devine

Photo modified from "be bold" by Julie Jordan Scott on Flickr. — Photo modified from “be bold” by Julie Jordan Scott on Flickr under CC BY.

According to Seth Godin, there are, as far as I can tell, three types of presenters. Good Entertainers, Bad Entertainers, and Change-makers.

The Good Entertainers know how to work the crowd. They know how to make them laugh, keep them on the edge of their seats, and maybe even shake their heads with wonder as they leave, thinking how great a show it was.

Bad Entertainers fail to do any of these things. They bore their audience, waste their time, and generally are unremarkable. The attendees are thinking about what they will do after they leave long before they exit the building.

The point to creating a presentation isn’t mere entertainment, although it’s a good idea to keep your audience riveted. Making them laugh on occasion is also a good strategy.

But to make a presentation worth doing, one that doesn’t waste your audience’s time, you need to have just one purpose. Godin is crystal clear on this. You need to make a change happen.

“No change, no point,” Godin says.

In other words, if we take what Godin tells us to heart, we know that the point of making a presentation is no different that the point of getting out of bed every day.

When you get up and face the day, you can choose to live it so you’re just getting by and surviving the ordeal. Or you can seek to do small things that make a difference and have the potential to turn into something better.

Change-makers create presentations that do more than just get by. They make presentations that take risks. The risk is always the same. You might fail. But if you don’t try, if you don’t do more than just get out of bed and ignore the possibilities, you’ll never know if you could succeed.

Pack Your Presentation With Emotion

When you make a presentation, you’re communicating your point of view and trying to get others to agree with you. Just like when you navigate through the day, it’s your emotional appeal that will help you achieve what you’re trying to accomplish.

You won’t get far trying to get others to follow your advice when you behave like an automaton. People want to engage with you. So whether they determine you’re a has-been or a rock star, you need to use emotion to connect with them.

Are You Selling Something?

If you’re an academic discussing an issue related to your work, are you selling something? The question Godin has us ask ourselves before creating a presentation applies to anyone who is presenting an idea. “Who will be changed by this work, and what is the change I seek?”

If you’re not selling something, then you don’t need to make a presentation. If everyone already agrees with what you have to say, then you don’t need to try to convince them. Go home and think up something else to do.

Godin gives us four rules for presentations:

1. Cue cards – Even if you don’t need to use them, making cue cards to remind you of what to say will help you outline your presentation and trigger talking points. Keep them simple and legible, so if you do need them, you aren’t squinting and stumbling as you try to read them.

2. Illustrate with images – God has a lot to say about Powerpoint, and most of it’s negative. Rather than use this software as a powerful tool to relate ideas, it’s become a crutch.

Don’t rewrite what you’re saying onto the Powerpoint slides. Don’t use images that aren’t professional or that don’t evoke an emotional reaction. Don’t use the music that comes with the system. Instead, find sounds and music that will get a visceral response from your audience. Don’t use more than six words per slide.

3. Hand out proof – The written document that supports what you’re selling should be handed out only after your presentation. Otherwise your audience will be reading instead of listening. Plus, if you tell them they’ll get it all in writing afterwards, they won’t have to distract themselves with note taking.

4. Get an answer – Don’t let them leave without getting a commitment or a signature or some sort of agreement. The whole point to your presentation is to persuade others to adopt your idea, to get them to do something different.

Make It Count

We want to live our lives in a way that makes them count. We don’t do this by never trying to persuade another person. Every day we try to persuade someone to do what we think is best.

We’ve got to give presentations the same way. Make it count for something. Make it worth doing and do it differently than everyone else.

5 More Marketing No-No’s

December 4, 2014 Beth Devine

In continuation of our previous 5 Online Marketing No-No’s, here are five more marketing mistakes to avoid. Like the wise business person you are, be sure to check this list and revamp any marketing mistakes into nonexistence.

5 More Mistakes for Your Marketing Know-How

1. Your email list is dirty

If you’re email marketing isn’t compliant with spam, you’ll get a high bounce rate, or worse, you could get your email efforts shut down. CAN SPAM carries severe penalties for non-compliant commercial email, but it’s simple to check it and stay within the law. Be sure to email only recipients that have asked to be on your marketing list, which means they’ve freely given you their email information.

It also helps your email marketing performance to separate your email list into groups, including targeting your list based on deliverability. This means paying attention to your email open rates and selecting recipients who open your emails and click on links you’ve embedded in them.

You might target your new email group by sharing only your best offers with these more interested readers, or by mailing the less responsive recipients less often.

2. Your customers need some TLC

Did you forget about those happy customers of yours? Or how about those new clients whom you’ve been ignoring due to other, more seasoned ones?

Sometimes we forget about and neglect our long-time, happy customers and the newbies who’ve just walked through the door. But both are equally valuable and deserve your attention.

It’s easier to sell a solution to an existing problem than it is to sell a positive benefit. So spend some time finding out ways you can help your happy customers to be even happier by learning what problems they continue to struggle with.

As for your new customers, they are often eager to respond to your questions when it comes to determining how you’re doing and how you could improve. If you don’t ask, you won’t know. Ask them to take a survey and give them a free beginner’s guide or offer them a free gift or holiday discount for doing so.

3. Your networking is abysmal

Okay, so you aren’t particularly social. Find someone who is and can network for you, or challenge yourself and get out there and attend one of the many events that are going on, particularly during the holidays.

Take advantage of the opportunities to meet new people, build relationships, and create new business. Better yet, sign up to speak at one of the events and really challenge your social fears. Speaking in public gets easier and the rewards of speaking at public events are like networking on steroids.

Seth Godin talks straight on the fear of public speaking, clarifying that it’s not about you. It’s really about what you have to offer. So make it about your audience and how you can help them. Isn’t that what you are trying to do anyways as you network?

4. You ignore the potential of your referrals

Referrals are your free marketing resource. Imagine getting new business and customers just from recommendations from your already satisfied customers.

Do you have a referral program working for you? Are you emailing customers after you complete a project they’re happy with to ask for a referral? Do you follow them on LinkedIn and ask them for an introduction to a potential client?

It’s that simple. When you ignore the potential of referrals, you’re missing out on an inexpensive way to market your business. So go ahead – do your part and ask.

5. You overlook the obvious: free press

Free press opportunities are an obvious method for marketing your company, but too often they’re overlooked. It’s an incorrect assumption that the press will come looking for you and your awesome product or service. You have to pitch them your grand idea to get their attention.

And they will pay attention because they are always looking for news. They want to know what’s going on with your company. Get their attention and get some press, and that will drive traffic to your website.

When you’re seeking out press options, don’t forget about small time players, such as online bloggers and local, small-town print dailies and weeklies. These formats are all thriving and open for business for your news.

Stop hiding from your marketing mistakes. It’s easy to make them, but it’s nearly as easy to correct them.

5 Online Marketing No-No’s

November 25, 2014 Beth Devine

Online marketing can be a daunting undertaking, especially when you’re a small business that’s used to traditional advertising. You’re also bound to make mistakes as you try to absorb all the information and apply it to your company.

Stepping out into the internet world of online marketing and knowing what not to do can be helpful. The following five online marketing no-no’s are practices you want to avoid when making the transition from traditional marketing into a successful online marketing plan.

1. No Blog

Not having a blog for your business makes it harder for people to find you. Every time you create valuable content, you’re giving Google and other search engines the cue to index your page, which will show up in search results and drive more traffic to your website.

Because let’s face it, how often do you update the pages of your website? With regular blogging, you are helping more people to discover what you have to offer – not just those who are typing in your business name when searching.

Blogging useful content generates conversation, creates leads, and keeps customers. Give Google something to crawl your website for more often, which will give you better search engine results.

2. No Local Search

Recently, a small business asked me what they could do to improve their search results. Because they were difficult to find when doing a search, they were concerned and wanted to do something to fix this problem.

Turns out, they weren’t listed in local search. If you have a local business, with the majority of your customers in your area, it’s important to be listed in local search, even if you also have a website and an Internet storefront.

To increase your visibility, customers need to be able to find you using search engines, starting with Google. Not only is it free, but it is quick to do.

Go to Google Places for Business, log in using your Google account or create a new one, and enter in the information for your business as prompted. Be sure to add photos and videos to give your business a more personal appeal.

3. No Social Networking

Online networking is an important component to your businesses online marketing. If you think it’s just a never-ending party with nothing work-related getting done, you’re misinformed.

When you build up your profile and build relationships on social media, you are also building traffic, which can lead to new connections and new customers. There is no cost to being active on social media outside of the time you invest, so decide on which networks you want to engage in and begin building a following.

By sharing content on social media, including the blog posts you write, you are creating another way for people to find you and share your content, opening the door to more traffic.

4. No Market Focus or USP

When marketing your product or service, find the problem and focus on the solution. Instead of focusing on the benefits alone, figure out how to solve your customer’s problem.

Spend time asking questions to determine what their problems are and how they can be solved. It’s easier to sell a solution to an existing problem than to sell a positive benefit.

As you go about the process of problem-spotting, be sure to keep your USP, unique selling proposition, in focus as well. As the one single statement that singles you out from your competition, it needs to be used in all of your online marketing.

5. No Data Measurement or Optimization

Online marketing gives you ample opportunity to measure data with analytics. Once you determine where your traffic is coming from, you can decide which sources are producing the most conversions.

Analytics tools will show you detailed performance data, giving you goal-setting information that you should continually update and change as necessary. If you discover there’s a particular source of traffic that’s giving you no leads, then eliminate it. Anything that’s giving you a lot of traffic or a high conversion rate, fine tune it for further improvements.

Data measurement and optimization is your roadmap to your online marketing efforts. Avoid the no’s of online marketing, stay on track, and don’t get lost by ignoring the results of your hard work.

Why Email Marketing Is Still the Cat’s Meow

November 9, 2014 Beth Devine

old-school marketing — “Caption, anybody?” by Rob, used under CC BY and modified from original

It’s so old school, why would anyone still use it? Hasn’t social media replaced it? Won’t people think you’re just spamming them?

These are valid questions and concerns about email marketing. These objections all hold a grain of truth, but they only apply to email marketing when it’s used incorrectly.

If you want to get results from your email newsletter, then be sure you’re doing a few things right.

Don’t Pussyfoot Around With Old-School Email

The cat is out of the proverbial bag. Yes, it’s the oldest internet marketing technology. But old-school email is also the new e-newsletter that grabs your readers attention with bright colors and compelling visuals.

Today’s email newsletter doesn’t have to look like it did a decade ago. With the aid of email marketing services such as Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, AWeber, and GetResponse, you can easily whip up a visual prey of delight in your email.

So when it comes to old-school email, don’t pussyfoot around thinking it’s no longer relevant. Commit yourself to a scheduled email newsletter as part of your marketing plan.

Who Needs Email When You Have Social Media?

Social media continues to be a great way to have conversations with your followers and customers. When you want to link to others, explore joint ventures, and meet people who share your interests, social media is the cool cat’s party.

Compare social media to an event where your objective is networking. It’s an ongoing, online event where you can build your name, where you can share your latest news. It’s the ideal platform for taking the information you send to your email recipients and sharing it with a wider audience.

What social media doesn’t do is make direct contact by landing in someone’s inbox. In other words, trying to position yourself as a leader to your social media followers can be like herding cats.

It’s one thing to be an authority on something, but to be a leader, you need to show you’re serious about what you do. The best way to do this is to deliver interesting content directly to the people who need it most.

Your email subscribers are like the audience of a radio talk show. According to Ben Settle, world class email specialist who delivers content to his subscribers daily, it’s the best way to keep a casual conversation going about what you have to offer your customers.

But Email Is So Spammy

The primary purpose of your email marketing is to sell your product or service. But that doesn’t mean your emails need to be spammy.

The essence of your email newsletters is to talk about your common interest or problem. Sometimes you won’t even mention your product in the email. You might just include a link to it.

Wherever it fits in naturally, within the context of the story you are telling in the email, find the right place to add information about what you can do to solve their problem. You are the invited guest in their inbox, and as their guest you are obligated to tell them how you can benefit them.

Always include a reference to how you can meet their need. Make this a clear call to action, and tell them what to click, where to go, or what to do next.

As your readers continue to receive your emails, the bonding process also continues. When they need what you are selling, you will be the one they turn to – the one they always hear from.

Get Better Email Open Rates With Your Subject Line

August 21, 2014 Beth Devine

If you want to see improved email open rates, then spend time crafting an effective subject line. By working the subject line, you’ve overcome a third of the battle because 33% of email recipients open email based on subject line alone.

Check out these 7 easy tips for improving email open rates by writing a better subject line.

1. Don’t try for the vague approach

Most people will spend about 15 seconds reading your email. Give them what they want to know, not some vague trickery in the subject line to try to get them to open it.

Get to your point quickly and keep to one topic, and be sure to make it relevant to your email content.

2. Keep it short and sweet

Your subject line has room for only one subject and no more than 50 characters. You need to say a lot in a few words, making it descriptive and to the point.

Using fewer than 10 characters could mean an open rate of 58%, so keeping it short is a mean feat of concise success.

3. Avoid buzzwords

The last thing you want to do is trigger a spam filter in your recipient’s email system. These emails will never get read if they go straight to the trash.

Buzzwords to avoid include the word “free,” which is a big red flag, as well as the more innocuous words “help,” “percent off,” and “reminder.”

On the other hand, certain words boost open rates for B2B companies, such as “money,” “revenue,” and “profit.” (Adestra July 2012 Report)

4. The first-name basis approach

By personalizing the subject line with the recipient’s first name or something else pertinent, you’re establishing trust. It’s a reminder that they have given you a name and email as a way to communicate.

The personal approach is a way to break through the large amount of clutter your audience receives in their inbox and stand out from the crowd.

5. Give them something to act on

You can create a sense of urgency by offering an incentive for your recipient to open the email. But be careful here. Sounding too slick and salesy can backfire and turn people off. The best subject lines tell, not sell what’s inside.

It’s also not a good idea to put a date in your subject line in an attempt to build urgency. This will date your email for those who don’t check email often.

6. Add your newsletter or company name

This reminds recipients of the relationship you have, as well as making sure they are aware of the nature of the content. Sometimes on smartphones email providers only display the subject line and not the sender name, making it more important to include a company name.

7. Get the right “from” name and email

Speaking of the sender name, it’s important to get it right. Okay, so this isn’t in the subject line, but it’s located directly above it and should reflect your company name and image. Call it the subject line’s counterpart.

If possible, it should match the department that is relevant to the email, such as coming from “returns@company.name.”

The best way to know what is working is to test it! Check your open rates and compare this with your subject lines to find out how your audience and specific marketing situations respond to different attempts.

SEO Benefits to Embedding Video

August 15, 2014 Beth Devine

Embedding video in your website has many SEO benefits, including the two-for-one benefit. You get two listings for the price of one – one for your website and one for your YouTube (or other hosting) channel.

We already discussed why embedding video is better than uploading on your WordPress site. By embedding videos and using YouTube as the host, you give search engines added content to rank. Since YouTube is a Google product, using YouTube for embedding videos gives your site that much more traffic-building power.

So how do you get the most out of embedding your videos?

Here are 8 tips to help your SEO with embedding video:

1. Name your video title with video keywords.

Google Trends is another way besides Adwords to see what keywords are good for your YouTube videos.

Go to Google Trends and begin a search for something. Then click on “Web Search” in the upper right and select “YouTube Search.” Check out the search queries used as well as the trend over time to see what keyword terms you might wish to try.

2. Describe your video.

Completely fill in the description portion using these same keywords. Use your website URL in the top line of your video description so viewers will see this first when they search.

3. Transcribe your video.

By adding a transcription of the video, you’re reinforcing the keywords with additional text. This is especially useful as well for how-to videos, giving users another way to view your explanation.

To do this, go to your video listings on your channel via Video Manager. Click on “Edit” then “Subtitles and CC,” “Add subtitles or CC,” and select a language. You can then choose to upload a file of your text or transcribe and set timings by typing in the text as the video plays. The video automatically pauses while you type.

4. Label your video.

You can add a watermark or other labeling by using Annotations. This is also a great way to add your website URL as a live link.

5. Link to your video from you website.

Don’t forget to add a link from your website to your YouTube video. This is another way for viewers to access your YouTube channel and your other videos, which are in turn all have links to your site.

The more your videos are viewed, the higher they can potentially rank in YouTube searches.

6. Create a video sitemap.

Or not! Video sitemaps are a way to make sure Google (and other search engines) index your video. The good news is when you embed YouTube videos, YouTube does the work for you, giving you much better visibility.

7. Place your video on a product page.

Placing your video in other locations such as a product page will help you to stand out in SERPs and give you a video thumbnail in the search results as well.

The added stickiness (increased time a viewer remains on a webpage) of video viewing is an indicator of page quality, another consideration in your rankings.

8. Don’t forget to share on social media!

It’s important to get inbound links to your video. By sharing your video on social media sites and email blasts, you are encouraging views, giving you increased website traffic.

This careful attention to your videos is good for your SEO because it helps search engines (and humans) to understand what type of content you are sharing. Optimize your website’s embedded video content and get your two-for-one benefit today.