It's the year for social media marketing. In 2011, businesses will be executing social tactics that are fully integrated into the overall marketing strategy. Every company needs a social media marketing strategy and the right resources to manage it.
Even as this edition of The Inside Edge newsletter was going to press (on US Thanksgiving Day), a study predicted that Black Friday will exceed Cyber Monday in the number of email promotions this holiday season. The study conducted by leading email marketing services provider, Responsys monitored the holiday email marketing initiatives of 100+ large retailers online. Up to 70% of these retailers planned on sending email promotions to customers and prospects on Black Friday.
When designing an online interface, whether it is a website, a landing page, an ad or an email newsletter, the primary objective is to get users to take positive action, i.e. to convert.
Conversion Architecture is the wireframe or blueprint that determines the form and function, look and feel, visual content and copy of any online interface.
Transparency is the key to a "healthy" organizational climate. Blogging lets customers have a close (but structured) view of your operations and keeps your staff in the know of what's happening in the organization. Rather than let perceptions roll asunder, you can maintain significant control of your business / brand reputation and stay connected with sustained and consistent blogging.
Research shows that visitors to a web page take between 2 to 8 seconds to decide whether they have come to the right place. Your landing page can either hold their attention in those precious 2 seconds or watch them click away from it. If they stay, you now stand a better chance that they will go find what they came looking for by following through on the call(s) to action you set for them. What this means is that a mere 2 seconds is all the time you have to achieve conversion or face failure...
Until a few years ago when the Internet wasn't an omnipresent, all powerful phenomenon, the Yellow Pages used to be the golden goose of lead generation. Particularly for small and medium sized businesses, these local business directories worked wonders. While the medium of search has changed from offline listings to online business listings on search engines, the fact remains that people like to do business with local companies. Of course, every business owner wants to expand beyond the horizons of their physical geographic market, but dominating the local space is the stepping stone to big business outside...
Public Relations (PR) defined is the art or science of establishing and promoting a favorable relationship with the public. "Art" because it takes trained skills and finesse; "Science" because it requires a methodical, strategic and consistent plan of action that is proven to deliver success. Unlike advertising where publicity for a company or individual is paid for across select media, PR is unpaid publicity with an unmatched power to influence your target audience...
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising can also be described as Point of Interest advertising - you are aiming to catch your customers' attention at their highest point of interest - right when they are searching for you! It is an advertising model in which sponsors acquire online ad space...
With increased awareness about search engine optimization (SEO) and easier access to information, business owners are more willing to invest in making their websites rank higher on search engines. Simultaneously, the explosive growth of social media is spurring businesses to consider making social media an integral part of their overall marketing efforts...
Judging by the astounding growth of online video viewership (close to 125% in 2009), there is no doubt about the tremendous opportunity that has emerged for marketers. Sure, online video still has a long way to go before it gets close to television viewership but eMarketer predicts that online video viewership will nearly double to 11.8 billion total hours in 2010...
Facebook is already the "world’s largest social network" in 2010 having fought closely with MySpace and Twitter. Let's look at some stunning Facebook statistics (*Source: Facebook)...
Most of us are guilty of letting our LinkedIn accounts site idle. Other than "View Invitation" and "Accept / Reject Invitation", we do little else with it. Creating a LinkedIn profile brings within its fold, a set of unwritten roles and responsibilities, which deliver great results when followed...
From banner ads to pop-ups, infomercials to instant play videos, email sales messages to digital flyers, there are thousands of communication pieces hitting out at Internet users today. And yet, Internet users are hungry. This hunger is for content that actually adds some value. It is a hunger that offers up a tremendous opportunity for marketers like you...
With the growing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, companies are becoming concerned as to how they will be impacted by the mass distribution of content as it relates to their brand. However, there are measures that companies can take to avoid events that can adversely affect their brand reputation...
Social media has consumers engaging in self-enthused review activities for several brands. Whether or not your organization has undertaken a strategic social media marketing campaign, be sure that your brand is being "chatted" about. From blogs, to review sites, to consumer forums, to Tweets, photos, videos and podcasts, there's a lot of chatter out there...
Even as Gen Y increasingly moves from email and surfing to social networking, podcasting and instant messaging, don't for a moment be mistaken that social media is for individuals. A March 2009 survey of 900 marketers by small business online community, PartnerUp showed that 88% of respondents used social media for marketing. 81% of this group cited "generating exposure" as the biggest benefit of social media marketing...
The evolution of Web design tools and technologies opens up a whole new world of creativity and design. Given statistical evidence that a Web page has between 2 to 8 seconds to hold visitors' attention or make them click away, a landing page design has to be, first and foremost, effective. So what’s the “effect” it should have. Conversion! Without a doubt...
Leading marketers around the world have stopped measuring SEO success purely on the basis of a surge in traffic. The combination of SEO, pay-per-click (PPC), email marketing and other online marketing strategies are being utilized to ensure that visitor traffic to a site converts into customers. And conversions or customers in this context don't necessarily mean visitors that pay online...
In a crowded market place, the store that attracts the most traffic often creates the impression that it is also the most profitable. Often enough, one realizes that this is a misleading perception as shoppers browse around and walk away only to make their purchase where they get the best service and value for money. The same is true in the online world as well...
Email marketing effectiveness is no longer just a measure of cost and speed. In order to address your customers' interests and be relevant to their needs, email marketing needs segmentation and personalization. Read on to find out more about targeted email marketing and how to reach the Millennial generation effectively...
As a business owner, you can access information not only about your website visitors’ but also monitor your blog audiences, track video viewers, measure social media campaigns, and much more. Read on to find out more about consumer behavior measurement through the next generation of Web Analytics...
As marketing budgets continue to shrink, every penny spent must impact your bottom line in a positive way. Paid advertising or pay-per-click is a tried and tested Internet marketing technique that has reached great heights in its advancement. Your business can reap good profits by only spending very little to gain new customers online...
A highlight of the Internet era is relationships forged through online communities. As a business owner you have the immense potential to leverage what customers are saying about you and market yourself better. Learn how to use social media online to be more profitable and enhance the value of your brand...
Web Analytics, also referred to as website traffic analysis, gives you information that you can leverage not only to better understand how visitors are interacting with your website, but how you can dramatically increase your customer conversion rates...
Successful lead generation in the world of business requires a strategic and sustainable process. An effective process goes beyond bringing in an audience in mass. Find out how your Internet marketing strategies can help strengthen your lead nurturing process to drive conversion and generate profits...
