You’re tweeting, pinning, posting status updates, and uploading videos consistently.
You’ve incorporated your social media strategy with your overall business marketing plan. You’ve finally gotten the hang of it!
But, are you getting the most from your efforts? How are you tracking your social media engagement? A recent study by the link shortening and tracking website, bit.ly, revealed the best and worst times to post links on popular sites Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, based on user engagement.
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Mobile marketing is now an essential component in any marketing campaign.
Nearly half (46 percent) of American adults — your customers — are smartphone owners. And, that number is growing exponentially. Therefore, it is necessary— more like critical— to utilize mobile-friendly marketing to bridge the gap between traditional marketing and online marketing. How do you do that? One way is through the use of QR codes or quick-response codes.
QR codes are the trademark for a type of martrix barcode that offers fast readability and increased storage capacity. The two-dimensional black-and-white code can store data such as contact information, URLs, email addresses, and more. They provide a direct link from offline to online, from print to mobile. QR codes are now being used on everything from plants at Lowe’s and homebuilder signage, to t-shirts, and race bibs. And, marketers are now starting to utilize QRs codes in email marketing too. These QR codes are powerful tools and email marketers can take advantage of them to leverage their campaigns.
According to Jericho’s GetSMART blog post, there are three top ways to use QR codes in email marketing.
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Email marketing is a great way to get the word out about your business. It has been said that it I takes up to six marketing “touches” to get a person to qualify themselves as a potential customer. Examples of marketing “touches” include: a telemarketing call, a Google search, a white paper download, a Facebook “like”, an email open, or a click on your email marketing newsletter.
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What’s trending right now? #MarchMadness, #FinalFour, #SpringBreak, or #Easter? Social media is always buzzing with the latest news, often even before it comes out in mainstream media. While some trends are best to stay away from, other positive big trends can help boost your email marketing efforts.
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If you are anything like me, you get a little nervous when you can’t find your smart phone.
You sweat, panic a little, and then breathe a huge sigh of relief when you find it. Phew! Back to instant access, text messages, apps, and email. The bad news is that we might have a little bit of an addiction, but the good news is that we aren’t alone.
Smart phone usage is on the rise. In fact, according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, as of February 2012 nearly half (46 percent) of American adults are smartphone owners. Another Pew Project study also noted that 87% of smartphone owners access the Internet or email on their handheld, including two-thirds (68 percent) who do so on a typical day.
With these numbers continuing to rise, it is essential that you develop a mobile marketing strategy for your emails to ensure that your recipents get the best user experience from your messages.
Here are some top tips for creating mobile-friendly emails.
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As social media becomes increasingly popular as an effective marketing medium, it continues to intertwine with email marketing due to the cross-promotional opportunities between the two areas.
According to a recent survey by StrongMail, 51 percent of companies were planning to bump up their marketing spend for 2012 with the top two targets being email and social media. Forty-one percent of marketers will maintain 2011 spending levels but focus on those growing areas, as well as mobile.
The survey also noted that, “more than two-thirds of businesses plan to integrate social media and email in 2012, versus 44 percent integrating mobile and email. The strong ties between email marketing and social media are also emphasized by the 47 percent of businesses that plan to increase investment in using email to drive growth in their social media channels, such as corporate Facebook and Twitter pages.”
These numbers are great but how do you get optimize your email marketing for social media and vice versa?
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Have you heard about Pinterest? Pinterest is the hottest new social media site and it’s growing every day. In fact, Pinterest had 11.7 million users in the month of January! Experian’s Hitwise.com showed that Pinterest was ranked #4 in web traffic in February, just behind Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
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You have seven to nine seconds with an email to engage your recipient and get them to click-through to your website and take further action. Some marketers, and many of their clients, feel that the phrase, “Click Here!” is the best – and only – call to action you need. Unfortunately, they are wrong.
While seemingly powerful and fairly simple, this call to action or CTA doesn’t outline the one crucial thing for a reader. All recipients need that ever important question, WIIFM, or “what’s in it for me?” answered. The term, “Click Here!” also fails to tell the recipient what action you really expect them to take. Sure, click is a universal term but what actually happens when you click?
If your email statistics and click-through rates are lacking, take a long, hard look at your CTAs. A weak CTA diminishes your power to convert therefore; an email without a strong CTA is an email not worth sending.
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A well-orchestrated and executed email marketing plan can do wonders for your business. Email marketing helps to foster relationships, build loyalty, and encourage repeat customers. It is important that every email communication is not sent out “in a vacuum” but rather, part of an overall email marketing plan that fits with your company’s marketing strategy. Email marketing efforts should correspond with, and supplement, not replace, traditional marketing initiatives. So, how do you go about getting started on developing a successful email marketing plan?
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Do you ever get tired of talking about yourself?
Sometimes it can get old to talk about your own products in every email.
Customers are always looking for something new and sometimes the same old product emails can get stale. When this happens, brands need to look for creative ways to freshen up the emails so its new for the customers and sparks that buying curiosity once again.
One brand, Under Armour, recently did something very creative with their product emails and it was actually a win-win for both their brand and their partners.
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