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5 Steps to Successful E-Mail Marketing

via Small Business Trends by Eric Groves on 7/22/10

Many small business owners and marketers understand the benefits of using e-mail marketing and online surveys to develop relationships with their customers. Yet, a surprising number of businesses send e-mail communications without thinking about their long-term goals. Take some time to think about your customer communications strategy. The upfront planning you do now can have an enormous impact on your overall success in the long term. Below are five steps to get you started creating an effective e-mail communications plan.

1. Consider your image

What words do you want your recipients to think of when they receive an e-mail from you? Here are a few: knowledgeable, available, professional, reliable and respectful. Every e-mail you send to a customer, prospect or member puts your brand and message front and center. You are building a brand among your constituents, and your e-mail marketing efforts can go a long way to support it. Let the values and personality traits of your business or organization guide you as you plan and create your marketing communications.

2. Determine what information is most valuable to your readers

How do you know what content is most valuable to your readers? Ask them. An online survey is an easy, affordable, and effective way to find out what your customers are thinking. The results you get back can provide helpful insight into the value of your e-mails, what content is most relevant, how your readers use the content you provide, and much more. Another way to learn what topics are of most interest to readers is to review and analyze your campaign delivery metrics. Look at your open rates and click-throughs to determine which articles generated the most interest, and which subject lines resulted in more opens. You can then identify the most popular topics that will appeal to your subscribers going forward.

3. Get your readers invested

Another consideration in your planning is how to get your customers more invested in your e-mail content. This goes beyond just writing about topics they’ll find interesting. Engage them by making them part of the content. You could add a question and answer section to your newsletters, conduct an online survey focused on content, or simply ask for feedback in every issue. Consider inviting your customers to share their success stories or suggest tips or information for other readers. Giving your audience opportunities to be heard and even seen will make their experience more personal and help you to forge a greater connection with them. And it will help you add fresh, engaging content to your communications.

4. Expand your reach – grow your list

Do you want to find more people who are interested in what you have to offer and to more deeply engage with those with whom you already have a relationship? If so, think about how you will use e-mail marketing to do it. It starts with list growth. Who do you want to add to your list? How will you ask them to join? How will you promote your e-mail communications and engage others in promoting them as well? The answers to these questions will help guide your communications strategy and the tactics you’ll employ. Perhaps you should incorporate an incentive or loyalty program to generate new subscribers and strengthen existing subscriber relationships. Or, you could partner with a like-minded business that offers a complimentary service or product and encourage your customers to sign up for their newsletter and vice versa. You could even conduct an event aimed at your shared customers.

5. Schedule your e-mail communications

Now that you’ve analyzed your reports, surveyed your customers, and figured out what content you want to send, it’s time to sit down with the calendar and plan. Consider upcoming seasons (back-to-school, the winter holidays) and events as e-mail marketing opportunities. Outside of these events, try and identify one unifying topic, component or section of your newsletter that will remain consistent throughout the year. Perhaps, you will include a monthly recipe, tip of the month, or link to a news article that pertains to your audience. Whatever it is, your readers will come to expect it and will be excited to see what’s included when they hear from you. Put all those ideas into the plan and then round it out from there.

Your e-mail marketing plan can serve as your roadmap going forward. By planning your customer communications strategy now, you’ll set benchmarks for what you want to accomplish in the coming months and identify the tools and tactics to help you achieve your goals.

If you want an additional, more thorough planning tool, download Constant Contact’s free Email Marketing Workbook. It includes probing questions and ideas to help you continue to build a winning communications strategy and plan for your business.

From Small Business Trends

5 Steps to Successful E-Mail Marketing

Color As Branding Element

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing podcast with Kate Smith (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes

Color has built in meaning and symbolism and can be a strong element of your brand when used strategically.

In this episode of the Duct Tape marketing podcast I visit with Kate Smith Color Expert, Career Color Trend Forecaster, and Editor of Sensational Color, a site featuring a wealth of information on the subject of color.

In this episode we talk about the various meanings of color such as red, green, and blue, and how the physiological impact and messages certain colors contain can play out in your business. Kate also reveals her 5 steps for using color in business.

Another great resource for all things related to color is ColourLovers.

In this podcast:
Why Color has Meaning
Common Color Associations
Five Steps for Color and Your Business
Companies that use Color Well
Color Combination and Your Message

Image credit: quinn.anya

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The big news you need to know today is this: In the face of February’s class action lawsuit and claims of extortion, Yelp is rolling out a number of major site changes to increase transparency and remove any question of impropriety once and for all.

What’s changed and what does it mean for small business owners and advertisers? Here’s a rundown.

Users will now be able to see ALL reviews left for a business

The first change to Yelp will allow users to see every review that has been on a business profile, including reviews that had been previously filtered out. Yelp’s review filter has come under attack lately as users began to wonder why certain reviews would “disappear” over time. A few weeks ago Yelp released a video on its review filter, explaining that sometimes legitimate reviews that were either overly negative or overly positive were filtered out to create a median effect. This meant that a user was never able to see every legitimate review that was left for a business. With this morning’s change, now they can.

Yelp hopes the increased transparency will help users to see that the review site is not filtering out reviews to favor advertisers and that all businesses are being treated fairly. According to Mashable, the additional reviews will be made available through a new link on all business pages and will show every review left for a business. Of course, be careful what you wish for. With Yelp now showing ALL reviews, it means everything that is left about your business, whether Yelp feels it’s legitimate or not, will be available for public consumption. For example, the nasty review your competitor left you? It’s now viewable. On the upside, all positive reviews that Yelp had previously filtered for being “too positive”  will also be seen.

Yelp will discontinue Favorite Reviews

Much of the controversy around Yelp came from the Favorite Reviews feature which allowed advertisers to select the first review that showed up on the page. There had long been some confusion (and rumor) that advertisers were given preferential treatment and could also have negative reviews removed for the right price or control what appeared on their page.  Yelp has strongly denied these allegations and has now removed the feature to put an end to any further speculation.

From the NYT article:

“Despite our best efforts, there’s still obviously confusion out there about what you can buy on Yelp, so we’re making a change to simply drop this feature,” [Yelp’s co-founder and chief executive, Jeremy Stoppleman]said.

According to reports, the Favorite Reviews feature will soon be replaced by one that allows business owners to post videos to their Yelp page, which seems pretty cool.

Overall, this is a big move for Yelp. As I mentioned, it wasn’t more than a few weeks ago that Yelp released a video explaining the workings of its review filter. Now, users are getting an even larger peak behind the curtain. While I applaud the increased transparency of Yelp here, I wonder if they’re not about to shoot themselves in the foot. By allowing users to figure out which reviews have been filtered out, you start to show your cards a bit in terms of how your algorithm works, thereby making it easier for those with bad intentions to game it. Obviously, the entire Yelp site is based on the integrity of reviews, which is why Yelp is making these changes to begin with.  The more public your filter becomes, the more of your ’secret sauce’ you’re letting out.

From a user standpoint, however, the changes will hopefully shed a bit of light on how Yelp works and show Yelp to be an unbiased source of reviews. As search becomes more local and with services like FourSquare nipping at Yelp’s heels, the review site needs to re-emphasis its commitment to the small business community. And these changes focus on doing exactly that.

More Trouble In Google’s Local Biz Center

Another week brings some more troubling news for small business owners and the state of their Google Local Business listings.  There are two somewhat concerning stories that have sprung up as of late that you should be aware of. If only so you can make sure you haven’t been affected.

Here’s a look at both.

Google Sends Potential Competitors Your Analytics

Late last week many small business owners and those that work with them began receiving emails about their local business results for the month of November. The emails contained  information about where the business ranked in Google’s local index, how many users clicked on the listing, how many users clicked through to the Web site, how many clicked on ‘more info’, and how many went looking for driving directions. This is all super important information for any small business owner to know and can be used to make sensitive decisions. Problem is, business owners were getting emails about businesses they had nothing to do with. Basically, they were getting other people’s site details. And if you’re getting someone else’s analytics data, well then, who’s getting yours?

Obviously, small business owners were concerned and a little upset. Mike Blumenthal covered the situation, as did search marketer David Dalka, Search Engine Roundtable and The Register. When asked, Google responded that it was “a glitch” and that less than one percent of Local Business Center users had been sent the affected emails. Of course, we don’t really know how many people “one percent” really accounts for.  It’s scary when you don’t know who has access to your information. It’s also potentially dangerous should it fall into the wrong hands.

Google Lets Competitors Hijack Your Listings

Just as small business owners were wrapping their heads around their private information being leaked, search marketer Lisa Myers showed how easy it is for a competitor to hijack your listing in Google Local Business. And she knows how easy it is because she watched it happen to one of her clients.

In her post, Lisa breaks down the exact steps that a competitor would need in order to hijack your listing. Scary is that it doesn’t seem that difficult. Just create a new listing with someone else’s company name but your address, claim and merge the listings, and then verify it via the mail. Once that’s done, any time someone searches for you, instead of seeing your real listing, they’ll see the one for your competitor and be directed there.  And just like that, your search traffic is gone. It’s just that easy and so far Google doesn’t seem to have a solution.

I’m not sure what the “fix” is for either of the issues discussed (Google hasn’t even addressed the latter). To be honest, I don’t think there is one for now. It’s disheartening to see so many issues with spam and hijacking (which sometimes happens accidentally) coming out of the engine’s local indexes with no real action taken.  I often wonder if Google’s policy of no response would be the same if it were bigger brands feeling the impact. Regardless, as a small business owner the best you can do is to be vigilant about monitoring your local listings and reporting anything that looks weird.  We’re louder in numbers.

From Small Business Trends

More Trouble In Google’s Local Biz Center

5 Steps to Successful Facebook Advertising

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5 Steps to Successful Facebook Advertising

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Currently Facebook boasts somewhere in excess of 400 million users and growing. You’ve probably heard this line by now, but If it were a country it would be the third largest in the world behind China and India only. There’s a pretty good bet that some members of your ideal target customer reside in and visit Facebook land, but the trick is to find them.

Facebook’s advertising platform is a vehicle worth exploring. The tool allows you to place small display type ads in the right sidebar of Facebook pages and profiles. At this point it’s not as effective in pure response as well targeted Google AdWords campaigns, but it’s not really the same kind of vehicle and you won’t find AdWords in Facebook, at least for now.

Like many things Facebook, setting up and running successful campaigns isn’t as straightforward as it could be. Below is a description of five steps to consider as you explore Facebook advertising. (Bookmark the Facebook Ad Help Center and return to get answers to the Facebook Ads process)

Target

One of the best things about Facebook advertising is the ability select who sees your ad using a number of variables, including keywords. You can target by geography, age, gender, education, relationship status, workplace and keywords. (I know someone who wanted to send a birthday message to his wife and targeted so narrowly that she was the only who would see the ad.) Demographics are pretty straightforward, the real trick is expanding your keywords to the point where you have a large enough audience to get the job done. Facebook used to have a tool that let you search for the hottest topics being discussed but they shelved it as they build a more robust analytics package. Check out all of your targeting options here

Attract and Engage

The first thing you must do is decide whether you want people to be directed to your own web page or something on Facebook like a Page, Application, Group or Event. If you are already the administrator of your Facebook Page, Group, Event, or Application, you can select it from the drop down option. The thing that’s nice about using ads to promote your pages and events is that Facebook puts a “Become a fan” or “RSVP to this event” button right in the ad. People don’t even have to visit your page to take action. There are some pros to sending them to a link on your web site (better tracking options) but by sending them to assets on Facebook you have the ability to multiply their actions through the natural social wall activity that occurs when someone RSVPs to an event. (All their followers automatically see that action.)

Some users find Facebook ads a good tool to promote events or get new fans to the pages. From an engagement standpoint think in terms of using the ads to promote content and value and not so much to sell something. The most successful use of ads on social networks is to create deeper engagement so you have the ability to sell once trust is built. Think about putting white papers on your Fan Pages and promoting that content or creating a free event, like a webinar, and advertising that event. In both of these cases you’ll have the opportunity to sell a bit once you’ve proven you know your stuff. (One quirk of note – when you promote an event created with the Facebook event app the title of the ad will automatically default to the title of the event, so name your event wisely )

You don’t get much space in these ads so use it wisely. Your headline (25 characters) should grab attention immediately with a benefit. You’ll get another 135 characters to describe and entice in the body of the ad. You also have the option to upload an image. Take this option. It may be the most important aspect of your ad so choose wisely. Facebook users are very image driven (it’s the largest photo sharing site in the world) and the visual graphic you choose will make or break an ad. This is an element you must plan on testing (see below)

Budget

Facebook advertising works a bit like AdWords in that you bid for keywords and compete to get your ads shown. How effective you are at this depends upon the competitiveness of your keywords. You can choose between a cost per click (CPC) model where you pay only for clicks or a cost per thousand (CPM) model where you pay per 1000 ad views. Most research I’ve read suggests that the CPC model is slightly more effective in terms of ROI. (Here’s a nice Glossary of Facebook Ads terminology in case this is starting sound buzz wordy.)

To start your campaign you must determine a bid per click and daily budget. You can set both of these numbers very low, but don’t expect much. Initially you are just testing so you’ll want to set your click bid somewhere around the Facebook suggested amount and a daily budget you can live with, something like $50 or more to start. You can always adjust these. Learn about the Facebook Ads Manager here.

Test

No matter where or what you should always test your advertising. Online applications like this make it pretty darn simple. You can and should create multiple ad versions. Once you create an ad you will have the ability to create similar ads and run those as well. You’ll be able to easily view which ad is performing the best based on clicks. Facebook does need to approve your ads so make sure you are familiar with their guidelines.

The simplest thing to test is your image. I’ve seen ads go from no response to mega response with a better picture. Mind you I had no idea it was a better picture or I would have used it in the first place, but testing told me so. Here are some suggestions from Facebook on improving your ads.

Analyze

Once you create and launch your campaigns you need to start tracking and tweaking. Facebook has a tool that gives you some information on actions taken inside the Facebook platform. So, if you are running an ad for an event or Facebook page you can use the Facebook Insights tool to monitor interaction.

Facebook Insights is a nice reporting tool as it can give you information about the actual, not targeted demographics and interests of the people clicking on your ads and keywords that drew that interest. This will help you narrow or broaden your targeting. Page admins can access Insights by logging in and viewing the box titled Insights in the left sidebar. This is only visible to Page admins. If you click on See All you will get full reporting. More information on Insights here and from the very useful blog Inside Facebook.

Facebook does allow you to run ads that point people links outside of Facebook and in order to track these ads you simply and monitor them using your own analytics tool such as Google Analytics. If you are using Google Analytics simply use the URL builder tool in Analytics to create a link to your page that contains tracking parameters and place that in your Facebook Ad as the destination link.

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SEO 101 in 60 seconds

SEO is marketing.  You are merely marketing a business using a digital medium, rather than a traditional offline medium. A component of Marketing exposure.  seo is about creating exposure. A business exposing themselves to the right audience, buyers, where the business product or service solves a buyers problem, yields the best conversion from a lead to a [...]

How to Make Your Homepage Copy ‘Pop’

One of the most frequent requests I get from content creation clients is to make their site copy ‘pop’. And I’ll be honest that I still don’t really know what that means. I think it means that they want their pages to grab someone’s attention. They want their content to stand out and to be compelling enough that it encourages potential customers to dig deeper into the Web site. That’s the goal of any great home page. But how can you accomplish that?

Below are a few suggestions for sites that want their content to ‘pop’, whatever that really means.

Make the content scannable: It’s said a lot that people don’t read on the Web and that they just bounce around from site to site until they see something that finally forces them stop. I’d argue there’s a heck of a lot of truth to that, which is why creating scannable content is essential in getting people to take notice of your site. How do you make your content scannable?

• Use bullet points
• Implement proper use of bold and italics to highlight the terms they’re looking for
• Use both headers and sub-headers to break out topics
• Write short paragraphs
• Leave lots of white space
• Use links

Put your call-to-action above the fold: If people are just scanning your content, then sticking one call-to-action at the bottom of the page probably isn’t a good marketing strategy. You don’t know they’re even going to make it that far! Instead, find natural ways to include multiple calls-to-action so that you’re guaranteed people see them. Use one at the top of your page with a graphic, put another at the bottom of your first paragraph and then put another down towards the end of the copy. Litter them throughout the page so that they’re guaranteed to get visibility. After all, your call-to-action is the thing that’s going to get your visitors to do what you want them to do. Make sure they see it. If you need some help with call-to-action best practices, Smashing Magazine has a killer article on the topic.

Make it readable: Have you ever tried to read your Web site copy aloud? If not, I dare you to give it a shot. If you have a hard time getting through it, then it’s safe to assume that a potential customer is facing the same difficulty. Many business owners will attempt to ‘impress’ their audience with big words, industry jargon and other comprehension roadblocks. Lose all that. Instead, write your home page as if you’re talking to the customer standing right in front of you. How would you introduce yourself and explain what your business does to them? Find those words and put them on your Web site. Use the words they would be most likely to use. Leave the impressive jargon for your competitors that you don’t really like anyway.

Be visually appealing: If your home page isn’t appealing to the eye, customers aren’t going to stay on it too long. They’re going to find a site that is. Things like site animations, videos that play automatically (and scare people) or huge, never-ending blocks of text are all things that may send a potential customer running. Instead of sending people out, use images to draw people in, lots of white space and some of the different scannable text strategies like the ones mentioned above. When someone lands on your site, they should feel confident that you’re trustworthy and not get bogged down in what’s happening on the page. Make your home page inviting.

Look to the present: Talking about yourself in the past tense is boring. It’s passive and it makes it really easy for a visitor to scan right over your content without stopping. Instead, switch over to the present or future tense to add some extra oomph and excitement to your words. It’s a very subtle change that can make a big impact.

Watch page length: Though the Internet gods have blessed us with the scroll bar, don’t make visitors scroll on for days. Because the truth is, they won’t. They’ll get bored and head somewhere else. You’re far better off creating shorter, easy to digest pages that will capture a visitor’s attention and encourage them to dig deeper into the site to learn more. After all, the goal really isn’t to keep them on your home page –it’s to get them into your site and onto a conversion path that you defined.

Watch your language: People land on your site with a mission. They’ve performed a search looking for information or the answer to their question – your home page should take that into consideration. This is where keyword research comes into play. You want to use the exact words and phrases on your site that a user would type in to find you. The more your site ‘matches’ what they were searching for, the more they’re going to consider you relevant to their needs. And they’re going to stick around to learn more. You want to write content that shows that your site has the answer to their problem. If you don’t know why people are landing on your Web site, then you need to first do some market research. However, hopefully you’ve already done this as part of your keyword research strategy.

Those are some very easy ways to add some power and ‘pop’ to your home page. What’s worked for you?

From Small Business Trends

How to Make Your Homepage Copy ‘Pop’

More Trouble In Google’s Local Biz Center

Another week brings some more troubling news for small business owners and the state of their Google Local Business listings.  There are two somewhat concerning stories that have sprung up as of late that you should be aware of. If only so you can make sure you haven’t been affected.

Here’s a look at both.

Google Sends Potential Competitors Your Analytics

Late last week many small business owners and those that work with them began receiving emails about their local business results for the month of November. The emails contained  information about where the business ranked in Google’s local index, how many users clicked on the listing, how many users clicked through to the Web site, how many clicked on ‘more info’, and how many went looking for driving directions. This is all super important information for any small business owner to know and can be used to make sensitive decisions. Problem is, business owners were getting emails about businesses they had nothing to do with. Basically, they were getting other people’s site details. And if you’re getting someone else’s analytics data, well then, who’s getting yours?

Obviously, small business owners were concerned and a little upset. Mike Blumenthal covered the situation, as did search marketer David Dalka, Search Engine Roundtable and The Register. When asked, Google responded that it was “a glitch” and that less than one percent of Local Business Center users had been sent the affected emails. Of course, we don’t really know how many people “one percent” really accounts for.  It’s scary when you don’t know who has access to your information. It’s also potentially dangerous should it fall into the wrong hands.

Google Lets Competitors Hijack Your Listings

Just as small business owners were wrapping their heads around their private information being leaked, search marketer Lisa Myers showed how easy it is for a competitor to hijack your listing in Google Local Business. And she knows how easy it is because she watched it happen to one of her clients.

In her post, Lisa breaks down the exact steps that a competitor would need in order to hijack your listing. Scary is that it doesn’t seem that difficult. Just create a new listing with someone else’s company name but your address, claim and merge the listings, and then verify it via the mail. Once that’s done, any time someone searches for you, instead of seeing your real listing, they’ll see the one for your competitor and be directed there.  And just like that, your search traffic is gone. It’s just that easy and so far Google doesn’t seem to have a solution.

I’m not sure what the “fix” is for either of the issues discussed (Google hasn’t even addressed the latter). To be honest, I don’t think there is one for now. It’s disheartening to see so many issues with spam and hijacking (which sometimes happens accidentally) coming out of the engine’s local indexes with no real action taken.  I often wonder if Google’s policy of no response would be the same if it were bigger brands feeling the impact. Regardless, as a small business owner the best you can do is to be vigilant about monitoring your local listings and reporting anything that looks weird.  We’re louder in numbers.

From Small Business Trends

More Trouble In Google’s Local Biz Center