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Get Small Business Marketing Secrets at Web.com Small Business Forum Next Week

October 11th, 2012 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

Small business owners in the Jacksonville, Florida, area can get free help learning more about marketing their business online at a Web.com Small Business Forum coming up next week. (Register now!)

The interactive forum, to be held from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Friday, October 19, in Jacksonville, is led by Web.com’s Jason Teichman and will teach local small businesses the ins and outs of successfully marketing their companies online. In addition to the presentation, the event will feature a Q&A session where you can learn and ask more about:

What are the elements of a great website?
How do I increase traffic to my website and to my business?
Is my website “working” for my business?
How do I market my business on Google, Facebook and Twitter?

Online Ticketing for Web.com Small Business Forum – Jacksonville, FL powered by Eventbrite

Of course, there’ll also be lots of opportunities to network with other entrepreneurs. As a bonus, each attendee will also receive two free tickets to the Winn-Dixie Jacksonville Open presented by Planters.

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Tags: Events, Marketing, online marketing, small business
Posted in Email Marketing, Events, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, Web Design | No Comments »

Learn the Secrets of Online Marketing at the Web.com Small Business Forum

October 5th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Are you a small business owner in the Jacksonville, Florida, area looking for help to successfully marketing your business online? Register now to sign up for the free Web.com Small Business Forum, held two weeks from today, and learn how.

Online Ticketing for Web.com Small Business Forum – Jacksonville, FL powered by Eventbrite

There will also be plenty of time for networking. As a bonus, each attendee will also receive two free tickets to the Winn-Dixie Jacksonville Open presented by Planters.

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Tags: Events, Marketing, online marketing, small business, social media, Technology
Posted in Email Marketing, Events, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, Technology, Web Design | No Comments »

5 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Emails for Mobile

October 1st, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

I constantly check email on my iPhone when I am out and about – and I bet you do too. Your prospective and current clients do as well, so if email marketing is part of your marketing strategy, it is vitally important that your emails are quick to download and read while remaining engaging.

Marketo published a blog post with 5 valuable tips that perfectly summarized how to create effective mobile-friendly emails. They are all easy to implement, always a bonus!

1. Keep subject lines short

Take a quick look through your email on your phone. After 4 or 5 words, the rest of the subject line disappears due to space constraints. Grab your reader’s attention with a short but punchy subject line that captures the meat of what you are trying to say.

There is an email currently sitting in my inbox that does this perfectly. Backblaze, a terrific company I use for online backup, sent an email reminding me that my trial is over and I need to buy the service. The subject line is “Backblaze backs up automatically,” which is a great reminder of how awesome Backblaze is and one of their major value propositions.

2. Check the text version of your email

Smartphones and tablets can be temperamental sometimes, rendering your HTML email unreadable – I used to see this a lot. Always doublecheck the text version of your email to make sure it looks OK and that any images or graphics are replaced with text.

3. Keep your message short

I skim marketing emails – pretty much everyone does. If you want to get your message across, stay as concise as possible. In Backblaze’s email to me, there is a header and 7 other, really short sentences. I can view the entire email on my screen without scrolling down.

4. Don’t go crazy with graphics

I still see companies doing this – and I am looking at one such example right now from a company whose identity shall remain private. Because the email is so graphic-heavy, I cannot download the entire email. Guess what? I am not going to read it; instead, I’ll delete it. Don’t let that happen to you! Keep your graphics small and simple.

5. Keep your call to action simple

Just as your subject line, message, and graphics need to stay simple and clear, so too does your call-to-action. My favorites are buttons with clear instructions. Backblaze’s button is at the top of the email with “Buy your subscription now” on it.

No matter what your call-to-action is, make sure the landing page that call-to-action links to on your website is mobile-friendly, just like your email. Marketo suggests removing JavaScript, Flash, and pop-ups from both the email and landing page to make sure they appear correctly on mobile devices.

What companies do you think do the best job of creating mobile-friendly emails? What have you learned from them and applied to your own marketing emails? Share your tips below!

Image courtesy of bgr.com

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Tags: Email marketing, Marketing, mobile
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing | 2 Comments »

Is Your Restaurant Business Taking Advantage of Online Marketing?

September 5th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

For local small businesses such as restaurants, a strong online marketing strategy that encompasses a website, mobile, and social media can make or break the business. Unfortunately, most independent restaurants are falling short in key areas of online marketing, reports The 2012 Restaurant Internet Marketing Study by Restaurant Sciences.

The study examined each restaurant’s website, mobile website, Facebook profile and social media channels and found that compared to other types of businesses, most restaurants still have a long way to go in using Internet marketing. Chain restaurants are more likely to have a strong online presence, but even they fall short. Here’s what the study found:

Falling short on sites. Although almost all restaurant chains have websites, many independent restaurants still have no Web presence at all. Obviously, this is a big hindrance to success, since it not only lessens the chances that consumers will find you online but also means that menu aggregators, social media and location-based services can’t link to your website to pass along information.

Falling short on mobile. While the majority of consumers use mobile devices to search for restaurants, only about half of chains have an optimized mobile website. For independents, the numbers are even grimmer, with mobile websites “almost nonexistent.”

Falling short on online search. Google Places, Bing and other search engines typically create listings for every local restaurant. Still, most restaurants do not take advantage of these free listings by claiming them and optimizing them to help local consumers find their eateries.

There is one area where independent restaurants are going strong: localized social media such as Foursquare. The study found 72 percent of independents and 86 percent of chain restaurants have a presence on Foursquare. On average, both chains and independent restaurants boast more than 300 Foursquare check-ins per location. In fact, signs show that Foursquare is slightly outpacing Yelp! as a tool for driving restaurant traffic.

That’s great news, but it doesn’t affect the fact that no matter how well your restaurant is doing on Foursquare or other social media, you still need a website to provide a “home” for your company information; link your social media, local search listings and reviews to; and help customers find you online.

Image by Flickr user tomsun (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, Search Marketing, small business, social media, Technology, website design
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media, Technology, Web Design | No Comments »

What Are Different Demographics Doing on Their Tablets?

August 27th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Tablet use is surging—no doubt about that. In fact, by the end of the year, eMarketer projects the number of tablet users will grow to nearly 70 million in the U.S.—more than double the number of users in 2011—and that strong growth will continue each year through 2015.

Right now, eMarketer says, about 20 percent of U.S. consumers use a tablet at least monthly. So far, according to eMarketer, about one-third of U.S. tablet users are aged 18 to 34, about 20 percent are aged 35 to 44 and one-third are aged 45 and up. Overall, the split is fairly even, but future growth is expected to occur fastest among the youngest and oldest users.

What consumers use their tablets for varies depending on their age, and knowing how different age groups use their tablets can help you target them appropriately with your marketing messages and website. Here’s what a study conducted for Adobe and cited by eMarketer found:

Playing games is the number-one tablet activity for all tablet owners under age 50. For tablet owners aged 18 to 29, game-playing was followed by shopping, reading books and checking email.

For those aged 30 to 49, email came in second, reading books third and shopping a distant fourth.

For those over 50, reading email was by far the most common activity, cited by 28.6 percent. In fact, email’s importance increases with age. The 30- to 49-year-olds were nearly twice as likely to use tablets for email than were younger demographics.

Although much has been made of tablet shopping, even among the heaviest tablet shoppers (18 to 29), only 16.1 percent reported shopping on tablets. In the older age groups, the percentage was under 10 percent for both groups. Also surprising: Users 50 and up were far more likely to view videos on their tablets (14.3 percent, compared to 6.4 percent of the 30- to 49-year-olds and just 5.4 percent of the 18- to 29-year-olds).

Another finding of interest to small business owners: More than 30 percent of users in all age groups have clicked on a mobile ad at some point (whether on a smartphone or tablet). Younger users were more likely to do so, with 40.2 percent of those aged 18 to 29 reporting they had clicked on an ad, but even among the 50-plus crowd, 30 percent had done so.

What conclusions can you draw from this study? Two come to mind:

First, I think it’s still too early to tell what uses tablets will be most popular for. So far, it’s a mix of the fun (games), the serious (email) and the in-between (shopping). Tasks that can be completed just as easily or more easily on smartphones (such as checking weather or sports scores) were less likely to be done on a tablet. So think about how you could offer greater functionality to tablet users than you do in your business’s smartphone apps.

Second, the good news is consumers of all ages are comfortable with mobile advertising to a greater degree than we might expect. If you haven’t already gotten your feet wet in mobile advertising, maybe the time is now.

Image by Flickr user IntelFreePress (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Email marketing, Marketing, small business, Technology, Web Design
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, Technology, Web Design | No Comments »

What Tactics Are BtoB Marketers Using Most?

August 10th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

If your small business markets products or services business-to-business, you’ll be interested to know what marketing tactics other BtoB companies are relying on most often. The Sagefrog Marketing Group B2B Marketing Mix Survey polled more than 150 marketers from a range of industries, and here’s what they found.

As might be expected, digital and social channels are playing a bigger role in BtoB marketing this year; companies also report that their ROI in these areas is rising. Four of the top five marketing tactics that BtoB companies are using are online—specifically, website development, email marketing, social media and search engine optimization (SEO).

Online marketing isn’t the only game in town. More traditional marketing methods, including trade shows, press releases, direct marketing and seminars, are still popular with BtoB companies. However, marketers are putting most of their money into digital marketing, including website development, email marketing and online marketing.

They’re also getting results, with email and online marketing now surpassing trade shows and events as the biggest sources of sales leads. The methods with the best ROI (in declining order) are:

Online Marketing
Email Marketing
Trade Shows and Events
Public Relations
Advertising
Direct Mail
Telemarketing

BtoB companies are also moving aggressively into social media, with 70 percent of respondents spending at least one hour a week on this marketing channel and two-thirds reporting social media is important to their marketing mix.

The most popular social venues are LinkedIn (used by 79 percent) and Facebook (used by 65 percent). Twitter (54 percent), YouTube (40 percent) and Google+ (30 percent) followed, with social media upstart Pinterest used by 9 percent. Blogs are also popular, used by 48 percent of respondents (up from 34 percent last year). Finally, online videos are on the rise, used by 35 percent of marketers (up from 29 percent last year).

How does your BtoB company’s marketing strategy compare?

Image by Flickr user Social Biz Solutions (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Email marketing, Marketing, sales process, small business, social media
Posted in Business Development, Email Marketing, Marketing, Sales Process, sales process, Small Business, small business, Social Media | 1 Comment »

GrouponWorks: Groupon Merchant Solutions Tool: Small Business Resource

August 9th, 2012 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich

GrouponWorks

Don’t let fear of the unknown stop you from using the daily deal site Groupon to help grow your business. Groupon recently launched a digital tour guide for merchants to not only show them why they should use Groupon but also provide a toolkit of marketing products and services to make it happen. If you’re wondering how another business in your industry made Groupon work for them, there are hundreds of testimonials you can learn from. Then learn about all that is available to your business such as Groupon Featured Deals, the Groupon Rewards program and Groupon Scheduler to help you handle all the orders and appointments.

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Tags: groupon, Marketing, small business resources, social media
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, Resources, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media | No Comments »

What Are Mobile Users Doing With Their Devices?

August 6th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

What are mobile technology users doing with their devices? A new Gartner report, Survey Analysis: Early Tablet Adopters and Their Daily Use of Connected Devices, found that five online activities are rapidly moving from the PC to the tablet: checking email (81 percent of respondents), reading news (69 percent), checking weather forecast (63 percent), social networking (62 percent) and gaming (60 percent).

So far, tablet users aren’t totally abandoning one device for another. Instead, they switch back and forth between PCs/laptops, tablets and mobile phones, using whichever is most convenient at the time. However, one key trend Gartner noted is that PC and laptop use on weekends has declined by 20 percent.

When tablet owners are at home, tablets dominate their tech usage, with most tablet use occurring in the living room (87 percent), the bedroom (65 percent) and the kitchen (47 percent). Weekday evenings are the most popular time to use tablets; the weekends are less popular for them as people are generally away from home.

Tablet users buy them because they’re small, lightweight and convenient compared to PCs or laptops. Interestingly, nearly half (45 percent) of tablet owners never share the device, making them nearly as personal as a mobile phone for many users.

The study found both similiarities and differences in how male and female tablet owners use their mobile devices. Both men and women were more likely to go online at home than anywhere else. When they do, they use the Internet for research, shopping, learning and socializing.

However, the women in the study were significantly less likely than men to go online when outside the home. One reason for this might be that men generally like to use devices to get information (such as look up stores or research products), while women are more likely to use their devices more for social or entertainment reasons, such aso going on Facebook or playing online games.

What do these results mean for your business marketing?

Timing matters. If sending marketing messages on weekends or during the evening, keep in mind consumers are more likely to be viewing them on mobile devices rather than desktops. Use mobile-friendly methods like text messages or Tweets to reach them at this time.

Male vs. female. If targeting women mobile users, marketing messages on social media work best. If targeting men, you’ll want to focus on research- and information-oriented channels, such as making sure your business is listed in local search directories, monitoring your presence on ratings and review sites, and providing information about your products and services on your own website in a mobile-friendly format.

The biggest lesson for your business? If you don’t already have a mobile strategy, get cooking, because mobile’s growth will only continue.

Image by Flickr user muir ceardach (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, small business, tablet computing, Technology, Web Design
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Technology, Web Design | No Comments »

How to Improve Your Small Business’s Email Marketing

July 27th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

All the attention social media gets in the marketing world might be convincing you that email is dead. Far from it. Email marketing volume hit record-setting levels during June 2012, and total email volume growth for this year is expected to surpass that of 2011, according to a study by email marketing company Responsys Inc. reported by BtoB Online.

Responsys projects email volume will grow by some 20 percent this year, compared to 16 percent growth last year. The company attributes it to several factors, including businesses shifting from direct mail and print to email; the greater ROI of email compared to other marketing channels; and the fact that many people prefer to get marketing messages by email.

Keep your lists clean. List hygiene is crucial to good ROI. Regularly update your lists and use opt-in email to ensure you aren’t accused of spamming.

Provide something of value. Depending on your industry, “value” may be useful content, important information or limited-time discounts and deals. Make sure your emails don’t come across as solely self-promotional and that there’s something in it for the recipient.

Target. Segment your email lists by factors that matter to you such as gender, age, business size or shopping habits. Then you can send targeted emails to users tailored for their interests and needs.

Use triggered emails. Emails triggered by customer behaviors or time frames are a great way to motivate actions. Consider sending triggered emails if customers leave items in a shopping cart on your ecommerce site, if they haven’t purchased from you in a while or to follow up on a recent purchase.

Use analytics. Your email service probably offers tools to help you monitor what recipients do with your emails, including open rates, forwards and what links they click on. By drilling down and tailoring future emails to recipients based on past actions, you can reap big rewards.

Test. If your emails aren’t getting opened enough, use regular testing to improve your success rate. You can test many elements, including time of day, day of week, subject lines and email length and content to see what gets results. By regularly testing, you’ll be able to learn what works and fine-tune your email marketing efforts accordingly.

Image by Flickr user Sean MacEntee (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Email marketing, small business
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, Small Business, small business | 9 Comments »

Yesmail Study Uncovers How to Drive Engagement on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

July 17th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Want to know exactly how to drive engagement on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube?

Well, you’re in luck, because Yesmail Interactive conducted a study of 20 leading retail brands (Gap, American Apparel, H&M, Urban Outfitters, etc.) from January 1 through March 31 of this year, and they made some interesting discoveries on what you can do to drive consumer engagement and build brand loyalty.

Jason Warnock, VP of Marketing Intelligence & Measurement at Yesmail, walked me through the study’s results:

Facebook

Day of week: The majority of marketers were posting on Facebook on Fridays, but engagement was pretty low that day. Surprisingly, Tuesday campaigns generate the highest level of engagement, yet that day was fourth in terms of when campaigns were deployed.

Time of day: Another surprise: the time between 10pm and midnight had the highest level of engagement but was the least utilized by marketers. Apparently, that is when the target demographic of 18-35 year-olds are on Facebook.

Frequency: The 5 most engaging brands posted once/day, and the 5 least engaging brands posted twice/day.

Most engaging content: Photos generated the highest level of user engagement, proving that a picture says a thousand words. Photo content, however, makes up only 43% of all campaigns deployed. “This explains why Facebook was so eager to acquire Instagram,” Warnock noted.

Video, meanwhile, was only utilized by 6.5% of all campaigns, even though engagement was almost higher than for photos.

Effect of email on Facebook campaign engagement: When an email campaign was deployed right before a social media campaign, brands saw a 50% improvement in Facebook engagement, while 2 emails led to 100% improvement.

Twitter

Day of week: Though 20% of all Twitter campaigns were deployed on Friday, they garnered the lowest engagement. Turns out Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days to tweet.

Time of day: Think super early in the day. The times between 5 – 6am and 7 – 8am garnered the most engagement. “Just like the emails at the top of your inbox get read first, the tweets at the top of your Twitter stream get read first,” pointed out Warnock.

Frequency: The best engagement came from 2 tweets per day, while the lowest engagement came from 3 or more tweets per day.

Most engaging content: Asking Twitter follows to retweet something in exchange for a giveaway; mentioning or quoting a celebrity; or tweeting a famous quote all garner the highest level of engagement.

Effect of email on Twitter campaign engagement: Twitter enagement is 20% higher if an email campaign goes out that same day. If you send out 2 email campaigns, Twitter engagement increases 40%.

YouTube

Day of week: Mondays generate the most engagement, though that day lagged in the bottom 3 days of when campaigns were deployed.

Video length: Shorter is definitely better: Videos that are 16-31 seconds long generate the highest level of engagement. Any longer, and people stop watching.

***

Warnock said this study had inspired Yesmail to produce more information like this on a monthly basis – and I look forward to sharing upcoming findings with you!

Image courtesy of Yesmail.

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Tags: email campaigns, Email marketing, Facebook, Jason Warnock, Marketing, social media, Twitter, Yesmail Interactive, YouTube
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »