Category: Marketing | Page 16

Why It Pays to Proofread Your Email

I have a good friend who is a nurse in the ER. She once told me that she dreaded the nights when there was a full moon, because all the crazies seemed to come out!

There’s supposed to be “supermoon” this Sunday, so maybe that explains why some email gremlins were out in force today. I received two separate emails from internet marketers who I admire. Both emails contained errors.

The first one had code where there was supposed to be a blog title and link to read it. I recognized the problem right away and alerted the sender, who corrected her mistake and resent the newsletter with the appropriate article links intact.

The second email had a subject line that read, ‘Insert Your Subject Here.” I recognized the author of the email, Jamie Turner of The 60 Second Marketer, and thought he might be doing something clever to get people to read the email. But when I opened the email, there was no content whatsoever! I seriously doubt that’s what he intended to send today.

Is Your Mobile Web Presence Costing You Sales? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Have you viewed your company’s website on a smartphone or tablet lately? If not, you should. Your mobile web presence could be costing you sales if it’s not easy to use. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to use a website on my phone, only to give up in disgust because I had to keep sliding my finger around the to make the content fit my phone’s screen. I’m not alone in my frustration, as this new infographic from BlueStout marketing manager Jenna Compton points out.

Here are two key points to ponder:

3 Reasons Why You Should Stop Sending Emails to Your Customers

Still sending emails to your customers?

STOP!

Here are 3 reasons why it’s not necessary:

1. Your customers already follow you on social media. You have a big following on Facebook. Ok, so you have to pay for ads to make sure your content is seen, but so does everyone else. Big deal. Besides, it’s super easy to monitor and respond to conversations across all your social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. There’s no chance you’re going to miss a complement or complaint! Anyway, no one checks email on their mobile device, right?

2. You don’t care about ROI. Social media makes it easy to keep track of trends, tweets and demographics, so there’s no need to know who’s opening your email and clicking on your links. It’s too much trouble to segment lists to make sure your customers are getting the information they need anyway.

Top 5 Twitter Management Tools

Ever wonder why small business owners and entrepreneurs join Twitter, only to stop tweeting? My guess is that one reason they give up is because they lack the necessary tools to manage their presence. If you’re in that same boat, and are thinking about jumping ship, I’ve got a life preserver for you – in the form of some handy Twitter management tools.

ManageFlitter – This is one of my favorite tools for identifying and removing fake Twitter accounts. When you log in with your Twitter id, ManageFlitter evaluates your followers and allows you to see who’s not following you back, which accounts don’t have a profile image (potential spam account), and inactive accounts, among others. You then have the option of unfollowing fake accounts, or other accounts that don’t add any value to your Twitter experience. The basic service is free, but you can pay extra for analytics.

Email Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

Planning an email marketing product launch this year? If you’re wise, please don’t follow the example set by an unnamed software company that sent me an email recently touting its latest release.

The subject line was: Big (Product Name) news in advance, from me to you! That piqued my interest, so I opened the email. Here is what the message said:

Hi Gloria,

First of all I hope your 2014 is shaping up beautifully as we approach the midpoint.

Next, I want to personally break the big news to you before the official release.

The long awaited Product Name for Windows and Mac will be released tonight and made available for purchase tomorrow!

4 Questions to Ask before Hiring a Web Designer

Are you hiring a web designer to create a website for your business, or update your existing one? Make sure you ask this person some tough questions prior to signing any contract or forking over any of your hard-earned cash.

Before I give you the list of questions, let me explain why I’m writing this article today.

I met with a local service provider last week who is trying to compete against some major players in his industry. He just spent over $30K to revamp his website and was frustrated that he wasn’t getting the phone calls he expected.

When I looked at the website, the content itself was fine. But I saw right away that it was missing a key element.