5 Critical Questions About Your Email Marketing

5 Critical Questions About Your Email Marketing

5 Critical Questions About Your Email Marketing

Why are we still talking about email marketing? It’s 2012! Facebook has almost 900 million people on it. LinkedIn over 170 million people. We have smartphones…

Not sure about you but I feel compelled to check my email every 5 minutes, just because I can get it on
Email is still the preferred method of communication for a wide range of audiences. For that reason it is crucial that you test, measure and pay particular attention to your email marketing. Here are the top 5 Tips to Reviving your Email Marketing.my phone. It is always with me, and that is exactly why you need to be using it more strategically. We are bombarded with emails, messages on social networks, and texts all day. Why should anyone open, not to mention read your emails.

First, look at your email marketing and say, “What’s the Point? Who Cares?”  Look at it if you got your own email to your inbox, would you open it, would you read it, would you click on a link? If you answered “nope” to any of these questions, it is time to redevelop your email campaign. Start with your customer in mind and what value it brings to their business or their life.

Once you have a reason to send them an email, think about how you are going to get them to open the email. This is your subject line. You measure the effectiveness of your Subject Line by the open rate on the campaign, the more people that open the email, the better the subject line. The most effective subject lines are very specific, offer a benefit to the reader, pique their curiosity, or utilize scarcity.

Now that they have opened your email, what’s next? Think about how many people may be opening it on their phone…Totally different experience reading it on a phone than a laptop or desktop. Does the call to action send them to a page on your website, now you have to see how your website performs in a mobile environment. Is it slow to load, do you have a separate mobile site? Mobile devices are changing the way we look at all marketing.

The content of the email is crucial to getting them what you want them to do next. Is it impactful, persuasive and meaningful? Does it help them with a problem they are having? Does it move them in the direction of contacting you to utilize your product or services?

Are you telling them what to do next, a strong call to action often misused in email marketing. To many businesses just put the call to action as “Buy From Me Now” without ever really giving any value or reason to buy from you.

One last comment, how does your email plan fit into the rest of your marketing? Yes it’s 2012 and there are many ways to communicate with your audience, you have to communicate with them the way they want to be communicated with.

To recap and review your email marketing campaign here are the 5 tips

  1. Does your email add value?
  2. Test Subject Lines to get more opens
  3. Are you messages mobile friendly?
  4. Is the body of the email compelling?
  5. Do you tell the reader what to do next?

How to Increase Business Marketing with Video

Video Marketing for Businesses

Video Marketing for BusinessesVideo marketing has gotten so much publicity as an amazing way to market and grow your business, but you might be left wondering, “Should I be using video to market my business?” or “How can video help my business?”.

In this article you will find out just how indispensable video is for your business and how you can leverage the second largest search engine…YouTube.

First, let’s answer the question of “Should I be using video to market my business?” Short answer… Yes.

The top benefits to marketing with video are below:

1)      Positioning – establish yourself as an expert, videos allows your audience to get to know, like and trust you. They can see you, hear your voice, get a sense of your personality, it is much more persuasive than just writing an article or a description of your product /service. When you market with video you become the expert people trust you.

2)      Sell–u-cation – video marketing can pre-sell a product or service by simply demonstrating the Feature, Advantages Benefits of the product/service. Focus the point of the video on one specific feature so it is to the point and answers only that one question. This information/education can get people into a buying state and build persuasive momentum to use your product or service. Answer frequently asked questions, should ask questions, and how to’s in order to market your business with video and position you as an expert.

3)      Search Engine Optimization – YouTube at this point is the second largest search engine, right behind Google, so when a person cannot find something in Google they go to YouTube to look for a video on it. Not only does an optimized video show up well in YouTube, it can also show up well in Google. Targeting high value key phrases in YouTube can give you the edge over your competition for competitive phrases. Use key phrases in the title, description and the tags of the video in order to show up.

4)      Theft Prevention – many of our clients and even our own website has been stolen! Yes, the internet is great but there are those that use it to cheat and steal. In one case another internet marketing company copied our entire services page, and pasted it on their website verbatim…Bad Idea. We found it when we received a Google Alert that our name appeared on someone else’s website. They left our name on the page! This is much more difficult with video, people can recreate the video, but that would mean work, and they certainly won’t take your video and send it to their prospects since your video is about you and your product or service.

5)      Versatility – videos can be used as sales tools, marketing, informational, as a compliment to offline marketing, the options are limited to your creativity. For example, you could use a QR Code on your business card that goes to a video of you. If a person forgets who you are or what you do, they can scan your card and watch a video of your describing how you can help them.

While these are just some of the benefits of marketing with video, the list goes on and on. When combined with a complete Social Media Business Strategy you are able to increase quality leads and grow your business.

To recap, create informational/educational videos to capture the interest of your audience. Position yourself as an expert in your field and get people to know like and trust you. Get your videos out there, since a video on your hard drive will do you no good, optimize for target key phrases and post to YouTube. Have a strong call to action at the end of the video to tell people what to do next.

Market your business with video while it is still an opportunity, start developing your video marketing plan today.

The 7 Perils of Pay-Per-Click Companies

Recently I have been meeting with a lot of companies about Pay-Per-Click (PPC), and none of them seem to be happy with their PPC provider. I have heard of and seen atrocious campaign management, lack of thought put into phrase selection and too many PPC campaigns sending a potential customer to the homepage of a website.

Here are some of the most frequent complaints and warning signs you should be aware of when considering a PPC provider or reviewing your current PPC provider.

  1. Running on Autopilot – While technology is fantastic and can do many things, it can’t do everything. Sometimes human brain power is just better. For example, I’m writing this as I fly home from Memphis, Tennessee. Now since we have hit cruising altitude of 37,000 ft, I’m sure the pilots have set the plane on autopilot and that’s great—the plane is set on course, and that gives the pilots a break. But when the time comes to perform and land the plane, autopilot just won’t cut it, it’s time for the experienced pilot to take the controls and land the plane safely. The same holds true online. Your PPC campaign should be monitored by a human. Landing pages (just like landing the plane) should be done by an experienced person, You don’t want your landing pages just pointing to your homepage. That’s probably not the most cost effective way to spend your PPC budget.
  2. You Never Talk to or See the Sales Rep – Notice that I said “Sales Rep” if the person who you are dealing with is just a sales rep then that is exactly who you are going to get. A sales rep whose main concern is selling you something. Too many companies are outsourcing or using software to run your campaign. There is no magic Pay-Per-Click machine out there that automagically creates the perfect campaign and brings customers to you. If there were, everyone would use it and the economy would turn around and we would all live happily ever after!
  3. Bidding on Your Name is Branding – If you hear this turn and run!!! Run fast and never look back.  Look, if people are searching for your name, they already know who you are, and that means your other advertising, marketing and branding has worked, so you don’t have to pay for it again. Secondly, you should come up in the natural (organic) search results for your unique name. You don’t need to brand people who already know you, you have already branded them.  Move on and convert  them to customers.
  4. Local Search is the Wave of the Future – Local search…more like searching locally is, and has been here for quite a while. Most people are not turning to local directories to start their search for things to do or services they may need  in their area. They are still going to Google, Yahoo, and MSN and searching locallythen adding, “Chinese food in Branson” or “Electricians in Branson, MO” to get that local search.  Most people are NOT going to Local.com or the YellowPages. Be wary of the deals that local search directories offer on their PPC services, they usually give you a deal if you pay for a listing in their directory they will give you a deal on the PPC Service. Being in their directory is suggested but not using their PPC services.
  5. Not Reporting on Conversions – I was recently given a report by another PPC company and they spoke nothing of actual conversions, visitors clicked on an ad and then filled out a form or called a unique phone number. The report had lots of pretty pie charts and spoke about the new search engine BING. Who cares! How many people actually did something from the PPC campaign? Ultimately, you need to know if you are making money or losing money on their PPC campaign dollars.
  6. You Came Up with the Keyphrase List – This one just blows my mind. If your PPC company asks you for your keyphrase list, they obviously aren’t doing their job. They are supposed to be helping you! Sure they can ask you for your OPINION, but the bottom line is, they should be doing research to identify what people are actually searching for online and develop a list of phrases for you, then, work with you to identify phrases that may or may not fit your product or service.  Then they should be testing measuring and changing the campaign as time progresses.
  7. They Don’t Test and Measure – To my last point! The obvious answer isn’t always the best one or the one that converts the best. This is why you have to test and measure. In no other medium can you be so precise in your testing and measuring, you can know exactly how much each ad drives in revenue for you if you do your analytics correctly.

If you see any of these warning signs or have had any of these complaints about your PPC company, then you are wasting valuable marketing dollars by not taking a proper look at who is providing your PPC campaign. PPC is an extremely powerful method of driving new customers to you. Don’t blow it.

Pay attention to your Pay-Per-Click Campaign!