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Category: Traffic Techniques

Measuring Reaction to Your Email Marketing

How-to: Market via email

Many business owners do not invest a great deal of time, energy or money into orchestrating an email marketing campaign because they mistakenly believe all email marketing is viewed as spam; but email marketing can actually be much more effective than these business owners, and some other Internet users, think because the view that email marketing is spam has absolutely no merit. It’s just not true! Ask those business owners who have discovered how to market via email successfully, and are enjoying a great deal of success, how they feel about this type of marketing. You will certainly get a starkly different perspective!

This article will discuss how email marketing can be successful and will provide some insight into how to determine the reception of your email marketing by both actual and potential customers, as well as regulatory agencies (FTC [CAN-SPAM Act enforcer], Consumers Affairs, etc.); but before we can discuss how to determine the reaction to your email marketing campaign, it is important for business owners to understand how to plan and execute a successful email marketing campaign. Perhaps one of the most important elements of such a campaign is to ensure your marketing efforts are not viewed by the recipients as similar to, or mistake it for, spam.

Making the distinction

One way to distinguish your email marketing campaigns from spam is to carefully develop your email distribution list; because although you may be able to reach a tremendous audience by sending out your email marketing materials to a large email list, this is not the most effective method of email marketing, especially in view of the fact that you know little, or nothing, about the list members (or subscribers); and you probably know even less about whether or not these subscribers will even be interested in your products or services. The point therefore is that, reaching a huge audience is not more important than reaching a highly targeted audience.

Focusing your email marketing efforts on millions of recipients who do not have a specific interest in your products or services is not nearly as effective as focusing your email marketing efforts on only hundreds of email recipients who are likely to be very interested in your content and your brand, as well as the products or services you provide. This is because you are much more likely to generate sales from a small, targeted group than you are from a large group without a specific focus.

Measuring effectiveness

Now that you know a little more about email marketing than perhaps you knew before, and how it can be effective, you might wonder how you can determine the true effectiveness of your email marketing efforts in the long run. This is important because it is not worthwhile to invest a great deal of time, energy and money into an email marketing campaign if your efforts are not generating positive and measurable results.

Likewise, if your email marketing campaign is wildy successful, you might want to consider organizing additional marketing efforts to further your success. One of the most important tools you will need, if you don’t already have one, is an autoresponder which can be obtained through a service that specializes in autoresponders.

Surveys and website traffic

That having been said, customer surveys have been proven to be one of the best ways to evaluate reaction to your email marketing campaign. Asking customers to fill out simple surveys when they make a purchase can provide a great deal of insight depending on the questions you ask. Questions such as where the customer learned about your products/services may seem rather innocuous but this information can actually be rather useful to the business owner.

Getting feedback related to where a customer learned about the products and/or services you offer provides excellent information about which of your marketing efforts are generating the most interest. If you receive a great deal of responses stating that customers learned about your products/services through emails, this is a good indication that your email marketing campaign is effective.

Another very popular way to evaluate the reaction to your email marketing efforts is to closely monitor your rate of sales, as well as your website traffic immediately after you issue a new email to members of your subscriber list. This can be helpful because an increase in sales or website traffic after an email was sent out is a strong indication that the email was well received and encouraged recipients to visit the website and make purchases.

Avoid simultaneous campaigns

However, there is one caveat to this method of evaluation. It can be quite difficult to determine whether or not the emails caused the increase in website traffic and sales if more than one marketing effort was made at the same time; so try to avoid starting an email marketing campaign at the same time as you launch a banner ad, otherwise you will not be able to determine which one is more effective and is therefore driving the increase in sales and traffic.

As a token of our appreciation the free ebook titled, Storytelling Marketing can be yours if you have any interest in the art of storytelling. All you have to do is download it here, enjoy the reading and learn how storytelling can be a powerful ally in any business or marketing pursuit!

Digital & Electronic Products – Unbeatable in Quality and Price!

10/06/2016
When Your Business Embraces Email Marketing

A competitive edge

Are you a business person who recently incorporated an email marketing campaign with your Web marketing objectives? If so, a self-congratulatory sentiment is in order, because you’ve embraced what is widely considered one of the most effective types of online marketing for your business. And while many business owners tend to shy away from email marketing campaigns based on a belief – erroneous as it may be – that such campaigns are always viewed as spam, others realize the importance of this marketing type (which ultimately is another kind of advertising) and are willing to invest a great deal of time, money and effort into organizing email marketing campaigns.

Business owners who have added email marketing campaigns to their overall marketing strategy will likely find that they are able to enjoy an advantage over their competitors who do not take the time required to implement an effective email marketing campaign. So if you are already using email marketing as part of your marketing and advertising strategy you may soon be reaping the rewards of your decision to do so – if, in fact, you have not yet achieved such objectives. However, if you have not yet embraced this type of marketing, you may wish to read on, because in this article will discuss a few of the steps necessary to organize an effective email marketing campaign.

One of the first elements you should consider when making a decision to start an email marketing campaign is the type of information you wish to include in your marketing emails to potential clients. This is very important because the information you provide will help your email recipients to determine whether or not they think your products or services are worthwhile.

EM professionals for hire

What this means is that you can include a variety of techniques in marketing emails which may include, but is not limited to, full length informative articles, short articles enticing readers to visit your website for more information, links to other websites which may be of interest to your readers, links to your own website and even advertisements for your products and/or services, as well as other products or services your customers may appreciate.

Once you determine the type of content and information you wish to incorporate into your email marketing, it is then time to consider how you want to structure your email marketing messages. Two of the most common structures include an informative email with subtle advertising, or an in depth e-newsletter with a wealth of information, which also includes subtle advertising as well as a few images (graphics). Deciding on the format of emails you will be sending out are important because they will dictate the staff you will need to assist you in your email marketing efforts.

You might require the assistance of a professional writer to assist you with the content in either emails or e-newsletters; that is if you are unable to write your own content. But keep in mind that if you opt for an e-newsletter you should also consider hiring a graphic artist to assist you in designing an attractive layout and creating graphics that will most likely be needed to create an appealing layout for your e-newsletter.

Opt-in lists from scratch

Next you should consider how you plan to create an email distribution (or opt-in) list. This is important because simply purchasing an email list is not likely to be effective due to the “hit-and-miss nature of such lists. In other words, when you purchase an email list, you may reach hundreds, thousands or even millions of Internet users by sending emails to all of the members of this email list, but there is no guarantee that any of those recipients will have an interest in your products or services. However, if you build your own email list of previous customers who have specifically requested additional information, as well as potential customer who have also requested additional information you will have a well formulated list which includes mostly members of your target audience.

A targeted list is ideal because you are much more likely to sell products or services to members of your target audience than you are to sell products or services to members of an email subscriber group which does not consist of subscribers who have expressed an interest in your unique content and therefore may have absolutely no interest in the products or services you offer. The underlying reason for creating your own list of opt-in subscribers is because they would have visited your website, blog or Web page and expressed a special interest in your content based on its uniqueness (niche quality), and wish to obtain more information from you on a continuous basis.

Such requests for more information and desire to learn about your company, products or affiliate service lays the foundation for long standing relationships which, in the long term, is most beneficial to your business as well as the subscriber. Once all of these preliminary decisions have been made, you can begin to create the actual emails themselves and can begin to distribute these emails; and after you have sent out your first batch of emails, you can take some time to evaluate the effectiveness of the first email before you send out the second batch.

Evaluation

This will be useful because if you determine the first batch was not very successful you can solicit feedback and make changes to the second batch before sending it out. If the second email is more successful than the first, you can conclude the changes you made were required and, in fact, beneficial.

09/06/2016
Marketing Emails Viewed Through Spam-Colored Glasses

Essential EM elements

Email marketing (EM) can be very effective as long as it is not viewed as spam. This is critical because when your emails are viewed or interpreted as spam (viewed through spam-colored glasses) they will not likely be read by recipients and may not even reach those recipients if they are trapped by spam filters installed by some Internet service providers. It is for this reason that business owners must work hard to ensure their email marketing campaign messages are not viewed as spam by either their recipients or the recipients’ Internet service providers. That having been said, we will take a closer look at various aspects of email marketing and, specifically, how business owners can ensure that their emails are not viewed through spam-colored glasses.

The distribution (or opt-in) list for an email marketing campaign is one of the essential elements which can help to ensure that emails sent by a business owner are not viewed as spam; but before this can be accomplished it is important to understand exactly what spam is, so let’s delve a little deeper into what spam really means. According to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2004, email marketers are required “…to include their physical address in the email as well as an “opt-out” link in every email designed to give consumers the ability to reach the marketer and tell them they no longer want to receive information from them after which the email sender must remove this email address from their data base within 10 business days.”

Essentially, the law prohibits marketers from sending any email which is unsolicited, and sent for the sole purpose of advertising or promoting a product or service. And yet – in spite of this law and all that it encompasses in the way of prohibitions – Internet users still receive mass quantities of spam on a daily basis; quantities which, for some Internet users, is a huge source of frustration even as other Internet users have become so used to the spam sent to their email address that they barely even notice these emails.

Neither of these scenarios, however, will bode well for business owners who are using email marketing campaigns to promote their products or services, because Internet users who are angered by spam mail in general, may react harshly and report such emails – legitimate as they may be – to their Internet service providers.

Comprising the opt-in list

Furthermore, Internet users who do not even notice spam are likely to either automatically delete emails they previously opted-in for and/or might block the sender’s email address to prevent future emails from getting through to them, because they have reached the point where all emails to their inboxes are viewed through spam-colored glasses.

So if you are a business owner who intend to initiate add email marketing to your already established business operations, or you’re already engaged in email marketing activities, you may find it helpful to pay special attention to your email distribution list and make sure to only include recipients who had specifically asked for additional information, since such actions will help to keep your emails from being viewed as spam.

You can take certain specific steps to accomplish these goals, the most important of which might be to invite individuals to subscribe to your opt-in list. In other words, simply ask visitors to your website – especially repeat visitors who seemed to have more than a casual interest in your content – to register with your website and specify whether or not they wish to receive future emails with additional information, advertisements or other helpful and useful tips. This ensures that the recipients of your emails are genuinely interested in your products and services and are not likely to view your emails as spam. Don’t allow your marketing emails to be viewed through spam-colored glasses!

Another way to ensure that this does not happen is to offer recipients the option of being removed from the distribution list with each email (an option required by CAN-SPAM Act, anyway). This is important even when the recipients specifically asked to receive these emails; but they are entitled to change their opinion at any time. Offering your email recipients the opportunity to remove themselves from a email distribution list whenever they want is worthwhile because it allows recipients to have some control in the situation. This is a stark contrast to spam in which the recipients feel as though they have no control over the situation and, therefore, no way to stop the spam from bombarding their inboxes on a daily basis.

De-spamming your business emails

Finally, business owners can help to ensure their email marketing campaign is not viewed as spam by including quality content in the emails they send to recipients of their email distribution list(s). This may include providing feature articles, product reviews or a series of short useful tips which will likely be hold interest to all who receive your emails. These emails may also include a soft sales pitch but such a sales pitch should not be the primary focus of your emails.

Putting too much attention on the advertising is likely to lead recipients to assume that your email is nothing more than spam. Conversely, providing quality information which is useful to recipients and subtly urging them to perform an action such as making a purchase or investigating the details of a product can make the email seem much more worthwhile, and less like spam.

08/17/2016
The Viability of Email Marketing for Your Business
A few email marketing basics

While the concept of email marketing can might be very simple to understand and comprehend, analyzing the benefits of this marketing type and making a decision as to whether or not it is right for your business can be much more complicated. The decision-making process is difficult because a business owner has to consider a number of different factors before making his/her decision. So whether or not email marketing could or will be a good idea for your business entails a decision-making process that, while difficult, must encompass some of the important factors that have been considered integral. Factors such as:
- Target audience having the propensity to utilize Internet tools and resources;
- Effectively stating an objective in messages delivered to that audience;
- Eliminating any probability that the message(s) can viewed as spam.
Answers to these and other important factors must be carefully thought out, as the audience must be identified, the objective must be stated and the message must definitely be clear, unambiguous and to the point. It is only after careful consideration of these basic elements of email marketing that a business owner can determine whether or not this popular Web-based marketing type is right for his/her business. That having been said, of all the factors that must be carefully considered, perhaps the most important is the degree of certainty a business owner feels that a particular target audience will use the Web on a consistent basis. Before a business owner begins to invest money, energy and time into email marketing, s/he should at least qualify the target audience.

Qualifying a target audience

Qualifying your target audience is important because an email marketing campaign is not worthwhile if members of your target audience are not likely to use the Internet to purchase or research any products or services you offer. Even if they use the Internet for other purposes it is not worthwhile because they will not be likely to become online customers for your products or services.

However, if you have a target audience who is very likely to use the Internet to purchase products or services you offer, and to research these items, email marketing is a great idea for your business. In this case it is absolutely worthwhile because you will be providing information which members of your target audience will find useful and which they may already be looking for elsewhere.

Avoid the spam look-alike message

Next you should consider the products and services you offer in an attempt to determine whether or not your objective can be effectively stated in an email message. This is important because if you offer a product or service, the value and objective of which is difficult to explain, any emails you use for marketing are not likely to be understood or well received by the recipients of your email distribution list. This aspect of email marketing is important to understand before you get started because it is essential that you are able to convince potential customers of the need for your products and services in a clear and concise manner, not make them feel more confused.

Finally, an important concept to consider is the possibility that your email messages might be viewed as spam if care is not taken to eliminate such a possibility. This is a very important concept because emails which are viewed as spam are not likely to be well received by recipients and may not even make it to the recipients inbox if their spam filters tag these emails as spam. Even if the emails do reach the intended recipients’ inbox, many Internet users have grown accustomed to weeding out spam rather quickly and will be quick to delete, without reading first, emails which are suspected to be spam.

Therefore, in determining whether or not the possibility exists that your emails could to be viewed as spam, it is important to consider the subject of your business and therefore the emails you send out. The importance of this aspect of email marketing is highlighted when dealing with certain subjects such as weight loss pills, which are likely to be viewed as spam more quickly than other items. So if you are in the business of marketing products or services that would likely cause your emails to be deemed spam, orchestrating an email marketing campaign may not be worthwhile, because such emails may never reach their intended recipients.

As a token of our appreciation the free ebook titled, Storytelling Marketing can be yours if you have any interest in the art of storytelling. All you have to do is download it here, enjoy the reading and learn how storytelling can be a powerful ally in any business or marketing pursuit!

Digital & Electronic Products – Unbeatable in Quality and Price!
07/28/2016
Advantages of Email Marketing to Your Business

Global in scope and reach

Get started today!

Even if you are already running a successful business, you may be surprised to learn that your business can derive immense benefit from effective email marketing campaigns. An email marketing campaign adds a number of different advantages; including the ability to reach a global audience, a variety of marketing options at your fingertips, and the leverage needed to do a great deal of marketing with comparatively low monetary investment. This article will take a look at a number of related topics in order to provide insight into how an already established business can derive added benefit from email marketing.

One of the most prominent advantages gained from email marketing for many business owners is increased capacity to reach a worldwide audience with minimal effort. This advantage is more clearly outlined when put in context with traditional marketing methods such as television, radio, and print advertisements, which are typically targeted to small geographic areas, whereas email marketing can be structured reach a worldwide audience. And while it is possible to reach an audience of such magnitude with other marketing methods, it would be much more difficult to accomplish and would likely involve launching advertising campaigns in several different markets.

So just to clear up any misconceptions, it is not being represented here that a business is incapable of reaching global audiences; but rather that it would require an intense and coordinated effort to do so, and will likely require at least a few staff members to assist in such an otherwise cumbersome effort. That having been said, the ability to transmit instantly via email can make it much easier to reach target audience members with literally just the click of a mouse; and even though the task of creating marketing materials for your email marketing campaign is significantly more involved, it is important to keep in mind that once this is done, reaching members of your target audience is rather simple.

The digital newsletter

Another advantage of email marketing is the multitude of advertising options available to any business owner – or entrepreneur – who wishes to utilize this marketing strategy. The most frequently used method of email marketing is sending group emails with product information and other promotional materials. However, another way to approach the concept of email marketing is to publish and distribute informative materials such as digital newsletters – more commonly known as e-newsletters – to interested and/or opted-in email recipients. A digital newsletter is typically much more in depth than the type of content which would normally accompany a promotional email, because these digital newsletters typically feature at least one in depth article, as well as a few shorter articles that offer either useful tips or review products.

Additionally there may be some graphics, as well as advertising banners and links included in the layout of such a digital newsletter; but email marketing campaigns have consisted of much more, having often replaced email correspondence courses that typically focused on one niche subject while featuring a few installments which provided detailed information on a specific aspect of the niche subject. Of all the various benefits a business can derive from email marketing; including efficiency, effectiveness, ease of implementation, convenience and scope, none sets forth a more compelling reason to use it than the low cost. In a nutshell, email marketing can benefit your business because it is an extremely cost effective method of advertising.

When you decide to orchestrate an email marketing campaign you will likely invest money to hire industry professionals such as writers and graphic designers to assist you in creating quality content, as well as an appealing layout for your promotional emails. However, this is typically not more than you would need to invest in hiring the same type of personnel for an offline marketing campaign; but unlike such offline marketing methods, there is not a great deal of cost associated with executing your email marketing campaign. Compare an email marketing campaign to the creation of a television commercial where you have to pay fees and purchase advertising space to allow your advertising to reach the public and the cost difference is readily apparent.

Virtually a no-cost transmission

In conclusion, the transmission of an email message is perhaps the easiest and most cost-effective step in a process that can be described as already relatively easy once the initial creative tasks have been completed; because when you transmit your advertising via email, there is virtually no cost associated with this transmission. There are of course costs associated with maintaining an Internet connection and retaining employees to send these emails; but these costs are minimal and can be considered as part of normal operating costs. So if you operate a business – thriving or struggling – it may be worth an initial investment in time to explore email marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy. Good luck!

07/18/2016
Mobile Blogging: A Cutting Edge Phenomenon!

The rise of moblogs

Mobile blogging, the most exciting phenomenon to have swept the blogosphere since the World Wide Web was created in 1999, is one of the reasons so many bloggers are attracted to this activity; in addition to the enjoyment they get from it and the convenience of being able to make frequent updates to keep their visitors up to speed with current trends, issues and other relevant matters. Mobile blogs – also referred to as “moblogs,” – take blogging to a previously unreachable level by allowing users to post events literally as it happen.

This new wave of moblogs via the seemingly non-stop activity of mobloggers, keep web users up to date with matters of importance – both good and bad – as they occur all over the world, thereby helping to make global communication faster and more accurate. Many people feel that the limitations of traditional (text) blogging have a lot to do with geography which – after all – is evidenced by simple physics, since the degree to which a blog could have been made current was directly related to how quickly the blogger returned home and boot up in order to update it; and the limitations were many.

However, similar to how creation of the Web helped to fuel Internet growth to new and astronomical heights post Web/Internet integration, mobile blogging was the beginning of a thrilling new era when web-based communication could occur spontaneously from any location. Moblogging devices meant that there was almost nowhere on the planet which remained off-limits for bloggers once technology caught up with the desire of bloggers to expand their market to a global audience. But there was a time, not very long ago, when such expansion may have seemed unattainable.

Desire outpaced technology

The first moblog technology became available over fifteen years ago, but it is only the past five to six years that mobile web devices were made user-friendly enough to appeal to most consumers. As camera phones and other mobile technology become more popular, an increasing number of bloggers were getting away from their desks and hitting the streets. Moblogging was becoming much more widespread than it was in previous cycles, and mobloggers were quickly attracting a lot of attention from the blogging community.

It is clear today (circa 2016) that moblogs have become a dominant force in the blogosphere, and for all intensive purposes, is expected to maintain such dominance for many years to come. So yes, by all implications moblogs are here to stay, if for no other reason than logistics; because, as indicated earlier, mobile devices make it possible to blog from the actual sites where events are unfolding, which is probably the most compelling reason why mobile blogging had – and still has – so many thrilling and compelling characteristics to have revolutionized the blogosphere.

Moblogs fueling Web growth

Consider for a moment that a moblogger with a camera phone can post blog entries from an auto show, ski event, or even at the foot of a podium during a presidential speech; or even from the stands during those final moments of the world series. These real life instances enable bloggers to experience the same real time thrills that live television coverage provides, but in a more democratic medium. The combination of mobility and individual control that moblogging provides places mobloggers on the cutting edge of modern communications technology, and it is hard to imagine that the number and prestige of moblogs will not continue to grow for decades into the future.

05/27/2016
The Documentary Quality of Personal Blogging

Blogs as documentaries

There are plenty of blogs on the Web dealing with a wide variety of topics and vastly diverse functions; but many blogs primarily catalog of the life experiences of their owners; so from this perspective it can be said that personal blogging, when discussed in terms of genre, probably falls more frequently in the category of documentary than any other genre. And even though there are quite a number of blogs that focus on the collection of poetry and other forms of creative writing, the vast majority of personal blogs are most likely to be categorized as documentaries.

When you think about it over the span of many years, making a documentary was meant to be an objective act of reporting the sights and sounds that the filmmaker, writer or photographer encountered. However, in contemporary times there was movement towards embracing that degree of subjectivity inherent in the documentary form. This means that modern documentaries often reflected the distinctive voice and sensibility of their creators, making today’s documentaries to revolve around personality, thereby – more often than not – blurring the lines between documentary and memoir.

Blogs fall somewhere between these two genres, muddying the distinctions even further, an indication that the personal blog, documentary and memoir are now irrevocably intertwined for better or for worse. Although few bloggers think of themselves as making documentaries in any formal sense, every time someone sits down in front of a computer and types up a record of their day, s/he is documenting a personal historical moment. Examples of this kind of blogging are those things we take for granted in our daily lives.

Fascination-driven

Things like the way we use specific modes of transportation, or the kinds of products we buy, which may seem quite fascinating to people who live outside our environments, and are therefore fascinated with our lot is at the heart of many documentary projects. When people think about blogging, documentary is not very likely to be the first description they envision, but a few decades down the road it is very likely that todays blogs will be seen primarily as very subjective documentaries of our era. People of tomorrow will almost certainly look to the blogs of today for insight into our historical moment.

Documentary may not be the aim of most people who spend time posting their thoughts and ideas on the Web; but in some ways, the documentary aspect of blogging is more of a side effect than a primary goal. However, the fact that so many people are interested in publishing these public Web diaries shows that personal blogs are about more than just rumination. The fact that bloggers are so stimulated by, and interested in, sharing their ideas with each other reinforces the idea that personal blogs are – in some ways – documentaries meant for public consumption.

A perspective-based niche

An undeniable truism is that documentaries appeal to people who are curious about alternate ways of life, and many people who regularly read personal blogs written by others are looking for this same kind of new perspective. However, this is not to say that vocations such as poetry and other forms of creative writing are deemed less appealing to blogging audiences worldwide; but rather, that each niche commands the attention of a specific section of the marketplace, with documentaries occupying the single largest share.

05/24/2016