Email Marketing Strategies-Increase Your Segmentation Efforts

Whether you are new to email marketing or have been refining your email strategies for years, here is one strategy that is essential to your continued email marketing success:

~ Increase Your Segmentation Efforts

Email marketing data offers incredible segmentation power and the ability to take advantage of small audience segments that might otherwise be financially or technically difficult to reach. If you haven't started segmenting your list and sending more targeted messages based on recipient data or behaviors, start today. Most of the research in the email industry indicates that segmentation yields significant gains to email conversions. Some typical strategies for segmentation include:

Geography- This is an easy, fairly obvious segmentation strategy. For example, your customer in Florida is unlikely to be interested in a snowmobile. And your customer in Minnesota probably isn't interested in a jet ski--in the winter, anyway. Geography can also be a powerful indicator of buying patterns and other influences on the purchase cycle. Take the high tech industry, for example. In high tech pockets like Silicon Valley early adopters are far more common.

Demographics- This is another easy one, and can make a lot of sense. For example, we know men and women can interpret information quite differently. Younger vs. older audiences take in information in different ways as well.

Job title and function- Are you emailing potential users with no--or all the--buying power? An owner or CFO may want to know about ROI. A middle manager may just want to make his or her job easier. And an engineer or programmer wants to find better ways to work. And so on.

Purchasing frequency- Less frequent purchasers may require a time-sensitive offer to encourage them to act. Or maybe you want to reward frequent buyers with exclusive privileges via email.

Monetary spending- Adjust resources so you're dedicating your efforts toward customers who spend the most money with your company.

If you have been segmenting your email audience, don't stop. Try to find new ways to segment and look at segmentation based on historical email activity, perhaps treating people who are frequent "clickers" or "openers" differently.

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Email Marketing and Text SMS Marketing-Search Engine Optimization-Integrating Keywords into Your Content

The first step in planning a new site or evaluating an existing site involves mapping your identified keywords into the content of specific pages on your site. To do this, first try to understand what the expectations a user will have when entering the particular search term. They may be looking for answers to a question ("repair rip in rug"), comparing different products or services ("best horse blankets"), or actually looking to buy ("cheap, extra large horse rug").

Once you have identified the expectations of your users, you need to decide what type of page to present them. There are basically five typical web pages:

1) Information pages are educational, answering a question or providing insight on a particular topic. Where you're selling a product or service they may act as an extension of your commercial site, attracting targeted traffic through free content, then funneling it through to your products or services. A user might land here after searching on how to "repair a rip in a horse rug"--then be drawn to your advertisement for new rugs. Some searchers may have irreparable rugs, so it's the perfect time to sell them one.

2) Summary pages contain links to collated information. A summary page might be a list of particular products, or links to categorized information pages. You may want to optimize your summary page so that it contains less specific search terms. For example, a searcher who enters the phrase "horse rugs for sale" would be well served by a summary page with options like style, color, or size.

3) Product pages are the sales pages for individual products or services. You would match these types of pages with customers who are ready to buy using specific search terms. For example, a searcher looking for a "blue, extra-large woollen horse blanket" would be best served by arriving on the appropriate product page--because clearly they're already sure of what they want to purchase.

4) Generic pages are typical to most web sites. These include contact details, FAQs, technical assistance (for a product), and so on. Generic pages can often generate the most traffic. They are put up on a web site to help support a product but, with the right keywords, can be quite good at attracting search engine users.

5) A homepage is the top level of a website. It contains links and pathways to other areas of the site. Homepages should be used for more generic search terms, as specific search expectations are harder to gauge for this type of page. You only have one homepage, so choose your homepage keywords wisely.

You'll find that most of the time, the most useful page for a visitor will be an informational page. However, your most profitable pages will be your product pages. If your product or service can dominate the results in ready to buy keywords, you'll see a dramatic improvement in your online sales. Attracting ten visitors to your site who are ready to part with $100 for your product is worth much more than 1,000 visitors who are just browsing.

For more information on an SEO, Text SMS, or Email Marketing solution for your business, please check out this website: Pure Business Marketing

Email Marketing and Text SMS Marketing-Collecting Opt-Ins From Other Points

Your opt-in page should be your main focus for collecting opt-ins, but it shouldn't be you only opportunity to collect opt-ins. There are many other contact points with consumers where you could solicit an email address. The following are some great examples:

~ Contact form: Add a checkbox asking for an email sign-up on other web forms on your website. For example, a contact form for more information, a webinar registration form, a whitepaper download form, etc.

~ Product opportunity: The checkout process on your ecommerce site is a great time to ask purchasers to sign up for email from your company. These are your most active web visitors who have already shown an interest in your company.

~ Co-registration: Look into co-registration opportunities that would make sense for your business model. Be sure that your main focus remains on collecting qualified opt-ins, rather than grow a list of email addresses for people who may have no need for your product or service.

~ Transactional messages: Transactional messages present another opportunity to include a call to action that prompts users to opt-in to receive promotional email messages from your company. Again, these are people who have already shown an interest in your company.

~ Brick and mortar: If your company or organization has a brick-and-mortar business front, use this opportunity to collect email addresses from prospects either with a sign-up box on a counter or by asking directly for them. Again, be sure that the value of the opt-in is clear to prospects.

When adding a checkbox to a contact form, the checkout process or a co-registration process, you have the option to make this checkbox either pre-selected or unselected. It is a best practice to never have this checkbox pre-selected. Furthermore, it also makes good business sense. Using a pre-selected checkbox will add uninterested people to your list, and they'll end up skewing your results by opting out or generally never responding to your message. And it could be worse: they could end up reporting your messages as spam since they will not have recalled signing up for your email.

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Email Marketing and Text SMS Marketing-Paid Advertising with Google AdWords

From a business perspective, one of the most exciting and engaging features Google offers is AdWords. Every time you search on Google and notice the small, boxed advertisements on the right side of the page, you're seeing ads placed through the AdWords system.

What makes AdWords so exciting from a business perspective is that it's a completely different advertising model than anything you've ever seen. Print advertising is priced based on circulation, and if 10,000 people would see the ad, it'll typically cost you 10 times what a 1,000-subscriber publication would charge. This translates directly online with the CPM (cost per thousand) pricing of banner ads, animated ads, pop-up ads, and so on.

All of this traditional advertising, online and off, suffers from the same fundamental problem: an inability to ensure that the advertisement has some meaningful relationship to the content on the page. If I visit a web page about troubleshooting Microsoft Windows XP, ads selling me a carbonated beverage or vacation in Hawaii are pointless, off-target, and a waste of advertiser money. No one clicks on them. Contextless advertising is dead. It's a numbers game and the numbers are stacked against you.

By contrast, Google can already analyze and deduce the subject of any web page, a heuristic that's the basis of the Google search tool. Apply that to advertising and Google AdWords ensures that you only have ads displayed on searches that are from customers who are interested in your products or services. What's astonishing is that having your ads displayed on the search results page is free. You only pay for anyone who actually clicks the ad and comes to your website.

Relevance is a big deal because the goal of online advertising is to get visitors to click on your ad and get to your site. The better targeted your ad, the more likely your firm will appeal to the searcher and the more likely they'll click on your ad, come to your site, and purchase your product. The measure of success, after all, isn't how many people clicked, but how many sales were closed. That's the real bottom line.

For more information on a Marketing Solution for your business, please check out this website: Pure Business Marketing

Email Marketing and Text SMS Marketing-How to Drive Traffic to Your Opt-In Page

Once you have your opt-in page, confirmation page, and welcome message set, you can now focus on driving visitors to the opt-in page. You should have a strong call to action on your home page in a prominent location that directs visitors to the opt-in page. A popular way to construct this email sign-up box is with a form field where visitors can fill in their email address directly on home page, then be directed to a second page (your opt-in page) to collect additional information. This sign-up box or call to action should include strong copy on the value to the potential subscriber of receiving your company's email. Additionally, your sign-up box and benefits should be prominently displayed on every page of your website.

You may want to consider using an incentive to drive opt-ins, such as a cash giveaway, drawing for a coveted prize or valuable coupon to be used toward their next purchase. You will certainly increase the number of opt-ins collected with an incentive vs. no incentive: however, you may also see a lower quality of opt-ins as people sign up for the prize rather than your email. On the down side, these people may not turn into active recipients and may thereby lower your response rates. On the up side, you now have the opportunity to turn people into active recipients who otherwise may not have chosen to receive email from your organization.

For more tips, and information on an email marketing solution for your business, please check out this website: Pure Business Marketing

Easy Tips for a Successful Email Marketing Campaign-Create an Opt-In Page

Your opt-in page is very important because it is the place where consumers will decide if they will or will not give you their email address to receive email from you. It also sets the tone for future email communication. When done correctly, it can drive future email activity; and when done poorly, it will result in lower email activity. To these ends, the most important thing to do when constructing your opt-in page is to focus on building value and setting expectations.

Build the value of opting-in by focusing on what's in it for the consumer, not for you.

~ "Be the first to know"
~ "Free, timely market updates"
~ "Special offers" or "Special discounts"
~ "Save money with weekly coupons"
~ "Strategies to improve your....."

Set the proper expectations up front by explaining on the opt-in page:

~ The types of messages recipients will receive,
~ Message content,
~ Frequency of messages, and
~ If they'll receive third-party offers

Other considerations to take when building your opt-in page include:

~ Will you use a short or long sign-up form? A short form will garner more sign-ups, but a longer form will collect more information about the consumer.

~ Will subscribers need to create a password to opt-in? A password could give subscribers access to an account, but you are likely to lose subscribers who do not want to create a password just to receive email from you.

~ Will you provide options for subscribers to choose what types of messages they receive? Asking subscribers to select their interests allows you to send targeted messages, but requires more work to create separate lists and content.

Don't make these important decisions blindly. Test you opt-in page for higher conversion and/or more qualified opt-ins. Aspects to test include the following:

~ Incentive to sign up vs. no incentive
~ Long vs. short opt-in form
~ Copy (value statements)
~ Sign-up options vs. global opt-in
~ Create password vs. no password
~ Placement of opt-in box on your website

Follow these easy tips to create a successful opt-in page.

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Email Marketing and Text SMS Marketing-The Benefits of a Well-Crafted Email Marketing Campaign

Email receives a bad rap. Businesses often shy away from running email marketing campaigns in their marketing programs, as they are concerned they might be seen as spammers. Yet they're more than happy to have door-to-door salespeople and telemarketers represent them every day, where they lack any real control about the way those people interact with their potential customers--and it's never really made sense to me why.

The following is a summary of the benefits of Email Marketing:

~Email is cost-effective
While there are costs involved in email marketing, such as copywriting and design, your production and delivery costs are significantly cheaper than that of direct mail. For the same amount, you can send out around a hundred email for every direct mail letter.

~Email builds relationships
While email may not be the only method that helps connect you with your audience, it's the least intrusive--enabling the recipient to respond at their leisure. A well thought-out email plan can facilitate customer loyalty.

~Email is "push technology"
Just like telemarketing, email marketing pushes your message to prospective and existing customers, rather than relying on customers to seek you out first.

~Email provides timely results
The time between distribution and delivery of an email marketing campaign can be measured in minutes rather than days. This allows you to choose the time you deliver your messages with more precision, and also means results will become evident quickly after you start your campaign.

~Email is quick to produce
Once you're set up to run email marketing campaigns, you can easily launch a major marketing initiative to all your customers in a few hours. There is no other direct marketing source that could be implemented in this sort of time period.

~Email accommodates hyperlinks
With just a little click of the mouse, a customer can go from reading your marketing message, to purchasing at your online checkout. This speedy, one-step process is what marketing dreams are made of.

~Email provides detailed feedback
Email Marketing allows for comprehensive feedback. You can measure how many of your emails were successfully delivered and opened, how many times your links were clicked on, and importantly, how many sales you made. This also enables thorough campaign analysis.

~Email enables affordable segmentation and
targeting
Email marketing is agile, allowing you to vary the content sent to customers on your distribution list. You can segment, or split you lists up based on market segments such as geographic location, purchase history, gender, and age to send tailored messages, improving you conversion rate.

~Email plays well with others

Email works well when part of an integrated direct marketing campaign. While other methods can come across as pushy or disruptive, email is able to prepare your customers for a sales call--or as a follow-up to a face-to-face sale--without getting in a customer's face.

~Email can be a viral marketing tool
It's so easy for recipients of your email to forward your message to friends and family, quickly turning your small campaign into a viral bonanza.

For more information on an Email Marketing or Text SMS Marketing Solution for all your businesses' needs, please check out this website: Pure Business Marketing

Email Marketing and Text SMS Marketing-The Do's and Don'ts of Email Marketing

The do's and don'ts of email marketing stem from a mix of direct marketing principles, technical issues related to email, and email etiquette.

The Do's

~Do ALWAYS use confirmed opt-in and provide easy opt-out and try to get the reason they are leaving you. Yes, we're saying it again and again because it's so important. And don't forget to use the confirmation email for an offer (preferably a free offer).

~Do use a service to check the layout in the email reader that your participants use. That probably means testing in Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, Mac Mail, Entourage, and Eudora. There are services to do this for you. You'll want to periodically update your list of email readers as new readers come on the market.

~Do make call-to-actions (CtAs) prominent and locate them within the upper half of the layout. In a larger email, you may have multiple CtAs scattered through the email. Folds tend to be about 300 to 400 pixels south of your top border. But check into an email service.

~Do use the subject line to get attention and show you aren't spam. Email recipients tend to look closely at the initial, or top, content and then skip through the remaining layout; keep this in mind.

~Do use a consistent send-from address so you don't have to fight through spam filters again and again.

~Do make sure that content can be seen easily; many readers will scroll through the email in a small preview window. Make sure that a two-inch window holds brand and main CtA.

~Do design a text-only version that is easily read with HTML turned off, or on a mobile.

~Do add a hosted version of the email, so that is the images are stripped the subscriber can click through and see the entire email as an image.

~Do mix 'n' match. Keep the look and feel of all your emails consistent, but fit the email to it's purpose. Postcard emails for simple brief announcements; email newsletters of summaries that intrigued recipients can click on for more-in-depth, website information; catalog emails for product descriptions; E-press releases to the media.

~Do test on a small list first. Stuff-ups on a small scale are always preferable to their large-scale versions!

The Don'ts

~Don't forget to get consumers to opt-in at the stage when you are doing initial customer acquisition. Many companies, even today, capture email addresses but fail to get permission at the same time.

~Don't be petrified of using images, but have a healthy respect for the challenges of rendering and file sizes.

~Don't have CtAs only in an image format: Some recipients will have images turned off, or will not use HTML, or will make their read decision based on what they see in the preview pane. If your CtA is in image only, part of your audience won't know what they're missing!

~Don't use large copy blocks. Break up paragraphs with bullet points, highlight key information; remember you're writing copy, not corporate memos (and hey-corporate memos don't have to be boring either!).

~Don't forget data collection: Every time you provide something to a customer, try to obtain a little information about them. Data collection can be disguised as a quiz, or as something needed to provide the customer with a benefit (for example, a horoscope, or personality test).

~Don't be long-winded; get the best in first. The strongest message and links should lead at the top.

~Don't hound consumers; if they don't reply, especially after a few attempts, it's clear they don't want to do so. NEVER hound them! This is a critical element of good email conduct.

For more Tips and/or Information on a Marketing Solution for all your businesses needs, please check out this website: Pure Internet Marketing

Text SMS and Email Marketing-Four Best Practices for Your Text Message Marketing Campaigns

There are some best practices that are particularly important to text message marketing. You'll want to follow all the industry guidelines, but these four are the most important.

The number one best practice (and law) of text messaging is to get permission. Never send a text message that has not been explicitly requested. You will harm your business immeasurably if you do. Think permission, permission, permission. Have a crystal-clear opt-in process and always follow it. Your opt-in process includes the initial information offering the text messages. This will be your marketing for the campaign. Your customers will then sign up to receive your text messages. They will so this by texting your keyword to your short code or by using an Internet-based sign up form, called a widget. In order to build your list of text message recipients, you must actually launch a campaign. You cannot gather names and cell phone numbers and expect to import them into a program. Most text message companies will not let you import cell phone numbers into their database unless they come from another verifiable opt-in source. As an example, if you have a collection of customers' phone numbers in your customer contact database, you cannot simply begin to text message them. They must initiate the interaction via their cells or on the web to unequivocally request text message from your company.

The second best practice of text messaging is honesty. Always tell your customers up front is they are going to be getting a subscription (more than one message). If you play to send them more than the initial text message requested, then you are starting a subscription (even if you're sending free messages). Be clear how frequently you will contact them and if you are charging them for this service, tell them what the price and billing terms are. Don't imply that a service or subscription is free if it isn't. For example, don't say that they get free ringtones if they actually have to buy 10 at full price first.

The third best practice of text messaging is to provide people an easy way to opt out. Share this information in every message that you send and in your Help message. The most commonly used approach is to tell your customers to send the words Stop or Remove to your short code. If you are using a shared short code, the opt-out text will be automatically inserted into each outgoing message for you. It will reduce the number of characters you can use for marketing to 140, but you don't have to remember to include the opt-out. Keep in mind that violating any of these rules can cause your campaign to be turned off without any notice by the cell phone carriers. This is one of most important reasons not to use SMTP for a messaging campaign. You cannot receive messages back in reply. Your only option for having an opt-out process involves using a website link, which is not in compliance with best practices.

As we investigate the options available in text messaging, it may be tempting to create a complex, multifaceted campaign. As the fourth best practice, keep it simple. Ask for one call-to-action for one specific purpose. Keep the actions that your customers need to do to the bare minimum. You want to keep it simple and straightforward so it is easy for your customer to participate. After all, the beauty of text messaging is ease of use and simplicity. Don't make your campaign too complicated; you could lose your audience.

For information on a Text SMS Marketing Solution for Your Business, please check out this website: Text SMS Marketing Made Simple

Creating a Mobile Web Presence-Content Ideas for Your Mobile Marketing Website

The strategy of effective mobile web content should not be taken lightly. Put yourself in your customers' shoes and give them what they are looking for as quickly as possible. Think about where they are likely to be viewing your site: on a bus or the subway, sitting in their cars at a stop light, standing on a street corner, or sitting at a restaurant. Not surprisingly, another study by iCrossing ("How America Searches Using Mobile")found that maps and directions are the top items that people seek using mobile search. Additionally, your customers will want other specific things from you on your mobile website, and they may want more and more over time. To get started, here are some ideas about what to include on your mobile website. Of course, you will have other things that make sense for your particular business or industry, as well:

- Maps and/or directions to your business

- Your business hours

- Click-to-contact button

- List of items or brands your business carries (your menu)

- Fresh content in small chunks

- Timely information about your business

- Special offers or coupons

- Special event information

What you don't put on your mobile website can be as important as what you do. For example, don't include:

- Excess graphics (size or quantity)

- Long articles

- Anything that takes more than three clicks to find

- Large files or downloads that could cause a mobile device to crash or freeze

More more information or a Mobile Marketing Solution for your business, please check out this website: Text SMS Marketing Solution

Email Marketing and Text SMS Marketing-Using E-Mail in Online Advertising

E-mail marketing can be an effective and inexpensive companion to your other advertising. Achieving that effectiveness and economy requires a delicate march, however. I have strong opinions about e-mail's place in the online advertising plan, and I have some concerns for businesses that ignore the subtleties. It's too hard to meet my basic measure of value in marketing tactics: Does this technique allow you to reach the right people and leave the rest alone?

People have been getting direct mail for generations, and most don't have a problem with that. Interesting offers get glanced at, and the rejects go in the waste basket without a second thought. Unsolicited e-mails are another thing entirely. These waste time and, even worse, carry a negative charge. Opt for mailing too often to a list too poorly qualified for interest in your message and guess what? You've just become a spammer.

If direct marketing by e-mail didn't work, there wouldn't be spammers or legitimate users of e-mail marketing, either. In my opinion, you are better off to focus your e-mail marketing not on generating new leads, but on communicating with prospects you've found via other means. E-mail's real strength is it's immediacy as a communication medium. Use e-mail to develop your precious one-to-one relationship with each prospect, and you use its power to your best advantage, without harming your brand or reputation.

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The Ins and Outs of Online Marketing-The Future of SEO

Links, PageRank, and the chase for the top spot on SERP's are so ingrained in the SEO industry--I think some people are actually addicted to their own PageRanks. The reality is that over the next few years the importance of building links will become so insignificant, it will stop being a major tool in an SEO professional's toolkit.

Search engines are becoming smarter and their ability to determine the relevance of content to a searcher's needs is improving every day. Relying on aspects like overall site popularity is becoming less of a necessity.

The actual dynamic of a search engine is evolving too. For example, with Google searchers are able to personally influence their own search engine results for future searches, geographical searching is becoming more precise, and behavior-based and intent-based searching is on the horizon. While the doomsayers claim this will be the end of SEO as we know it, I see it as a bright future, where there will be more to SEO than just links and keywords. Where quality content will reign supreme over black hat SEO, and the people producing the highest value will reap the search engine rewards.

Rest assured, though, that the benefits of a good link-building strategy are still healthy. As long as you take interest in SEO industry news, you can adjust your strategies when and if there is a necessity to do so.

For an SEO, Text SMS, or E-Mail Marketing solution for your company, please check out this website: Pure Business Marketing