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10 Thought-Provoking Statistics That Affect Your Marketing Strategy

August 1st, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

After seeing the following marketing statistics, fresh off the presses from Hubspot, you might want to re-think some of your marketing efforts. I certainly am!

Social Media Engagement

91% of online adults use social media regularly. Is your business active on social media?

Don’t go overboard posting on Facebook! If you post twice a day (rather than once), those posts only receive 57% of the likes and 78% of the comments per post.

This statistic is kind of sad: Less than half a percent of Facebook fans engage with brands they follow.

But this statistic is happy: 20% of Facebook users have purchased something because of ads or comments.

As is this one: 38% of people have recommended a brand they follow on social media.

Marketing Automation Works

If you set up messages to go out based on an event – like someone signing up for a webinar – the click-through rate skyrockets to 119% higher than a “business as usual” message.

Stop Ignoring Mobile

Emails are increasingly being opened on smartphones and tablets – it has increased by 80% over the last 6 months. Are your messages optimized for all devices?

Businesses in the U.S. are increasingly on board with mobile. Of the 45% of companies that use mobile marketing, 70% have mobile websites, 55% have mobile apps and 49% have QR codes.

Make Your Emails Relevant

A whopping 61% of emails received on “work” email accounts are non-essential. Make sure your email marketing messages do not get dumped into that category!

Add Videos to Your Marketing Mix

YouTube users consume more than 3 billion hours of video per month. Three. Billion. Hours.

Now that you have absorbed all of those numbers, how will you adjust your marketing efforts? Leave a comment below!

Image courtesy of deploy511.org

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Tags: email, Facebook, Marketing, marketing automation, mobile marketing, mobile optimization, social media, social media engagement, video marketing
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Automate Online Marketing and Stay Organized With IFTTT

June 6th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

In order to manager social media, small business owners do a lot of things, from downloading various apps to using social media dashboards. I just read about another tool that you might want to consider using called Ifttt.

Funny name, cool service: Ifttt is short for “If this, then that” – basically, it’s a very easy way to automate your social media accounts. Think of it like a game of dominos: You simply set a trigger for one service, and when that occurs, another action is immediately carried out.

Here are 3 ways Ifttt can work for you:

Link accounts so specific actions are automatic.

For example, post news and updates on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ at once and link your RSS feed so new blog posts are automatically shared.

Administrative grunt work will be easier.

Instead of changing account profile pictures one by one, all of your profile pictures will update across accounts – or on only two accounts.

You can keep track of your social media updates and shared links by sending them to Evernote and posting them on your Google Calendar.

If you use Google Reader, send blog post ideas to Evernote before you forget about them.

Organize yourself once and for all.

Keeping up with email is a never-ending task, but Ifttt makes it a lot easier. Emails can be cleared out of your inbox by adding labels to Gmail messages and sending them to Evernote or your calendar.

Backing up documents, pictures, and email attachments can be done by sending them to Dropbox, and you can cross-post images on Instagram and Flickr, thus creating two archives.

Instead of juggling calendars and communication channels, notifications can be set up to keep you up-to-date. For example, you can be informed of changes to your flight’s departure time and reminded about regular events, like your weekly staff meeting.

***

If you use Ifttt, what other ways has it made your life easier? Share your ideas in the comments section below!

Image courtesy of socialmediarology.com

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Tags: email, Evernote, Facebook, Flicr, Google, Ifttt, Instagram, Marketing, marketing automation, social media, Twitter
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

How To Be a Pro at SEO: Part 2

January 5th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series How to Be a Pro at SEO

In the first article of this series, I provided an overview of SEO and discussed on-page SEO tactics. This article will cover off-page SEO as well as some tips on avoiding bad SEO practices.

Off-Page SEO

While you can control the content on your page, and therefore, your on-page SEO efforts, your off-page SEO can be a bit more challenging. Building this type of SEO requires nurturing relationships by creating content people want to link to.

Search engines look not only at the number of links to your site, but also at the quality of the links. For example, one link from The New York Times will mean much more than a hundred from smaller blogs. The search engines will also look at the anchor text surrounding links to your site, to determine the relevancy of the content.

Here are some tactics for getting relevant links to your website:

Use social media to spread your content throughout the web. Search engines use the content shared on social media when determining website rank because simply put, if it has been shared, it must be influential and attention-worthy. Make your website content easy to share by installing social network buttons throughout your site. You can also share your content on your own social media pages and profiles, encouraging your community to pass it on. If your content is useful, people will link to you in their blogs and on their websites.
Use email to spread your content, too. Make your email content easy to share by adding share buttons to your messages. These buttons can help readers tweet the content to their followers or forward it on to a friend.
Blogs are the best way to create a stream of fresh content that your customers will find useful. Write engaging articles about your industry, offer tips to help your customers and clients, and provide interesting news, and people will share and link to you. There’s no better way to build links than to create amazing content that everyone wants to talk about and share.

Often, being good at something requires knowing what not to do. To that end, here are five things you should never do if you want to excel at SEO:

1. Using “Black Hat” SEO to try to boost your ranking is discouraged by search engines and may even hurt your business. Black Hat techniques are designed to bend the rules of SEO, and they include:

Keyword Stuffing: cramming keywords onto a web page to create “content” with no regard to usefulness or even legibility
Doorway Pages: pages filled with keywords that redirect users to another site
Invisible Text: using white text on a white background so a search engine can see it, but a user cannot

2. Shady linking schemes have no place in a top-notch SEO campaign. Quick-fix link building will be recognized and punished by the search engines. Emailing tons of webmasters to ask for a link, offering to trade links with anyone who will link to you, and purchasing links will raise red flags. Building high-quality inbound links takes time and will happen naturally if your site contains useful, relevant content.

3. If you focus too much on metadata, you will miss other fruitful tactics for creating a site the search engines love. There was a time when cramming keywords into the HTML of your site was enough to rank high, but that time is over. Some search engines still use meta tags to index websites, so you should still include them, but don’t go overboard. Focus your efforts on the on-page tactics discussed earlier instead.

4. Creating irrelevant content just to get people to your website won’t lead to much more than increased bounce rates. When you don’t take the time to create content that flows naturally, your website visitors will become frustrated and will likely see through your efforts. Stuffing your content with keywords, to the point that it becomes illegible, is bad SEO practice.

5. Focusing on driving large amounts of traffic rather than qualified leads will leave you with an SEO campaign without much ROI. If you drive tons of traffic to your site, but your visitors never become customers, you should refine your keyword strategy. Aim to generate content that will have your website visitors saying, “Now, this is exactly what I was looking for.” So, if your traffic is increasing, but the bounce rates are also sky-high, reassess your keywords.

Hopefully, now you are well-versed in the strategies of SEO. Have you tried any of these tactics before? Let us know how it worked out by leaving a comment below.

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Tags: Black Hat SEO, blogs, email, leads, linking, Marketing, metadata, off-page SEO, search engine optimization, Search Marketing, seo, social media
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing | 2 Comments »

6 Cool Startups That Can Help Your Small Business Grow

October 13th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

As editor at Tech Cocktail, I get to learn about a lot of really interesting startups, so I thought I’d share six companies that we’ve recently covered that can help your small business grow.

1. Qidiq: For Surveys

If you want to survey your customers, prospective customers, vendors and/or employees, try out Qidiq. Their platform lets you survey people via email and see the results nearly instantly.

Simply put together your list of questions and send them off via email or text. Your questions can be answered yes/no, with a 5-star rating, or as multiple choice. No matter which method you use, your respondents can answer with one click and add a comment. Unlike standard surveys, the question is right in the email.

The best part? You can space out your questions over several days so you are not overwhelming the people on your list.

2. Yesware: For Sales

Want to close more business? Silly question – of course you do! Yesware is an email productivity service that integrates into Gmail and your mobile phone and provides email analytics, customizable templates and more to help salespeople respond to customers more effectively.

Want to save time? Yesware also helps reduce data entry into CRMs like SalesForce, Sugar, Zoho, Basecamp, Landslide and others.

3. Ohours: For Office Hours

The founder of Tech Cocktail just tried this out in New York City at the Ace Hotel Lobby Bar, and I actually got to see it in action when I stopped by to say hi. He loved it so much that I’m going to try it when I am in Chicago, Denver and San Francisco this fall.

Ohours makes scheduling office hours super easy. Sign up via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and schedule blocks of time that you can tweet or share. Anyone can sign up to meet with you.

4. OneSky: For Translation

If you want to go global, check out OneSky, which helps streamline the translation of websites and apps by connecting you to translation agencies. They also have a really cool crowdsourcing option. You can ask for smoother, more seamless translations, which then get voted on. If you’d like, you can then use the new text that wins the most votes.

5. Profitably: For Business Planning

If you want to succeed, you need to have a plan, but putting one together, well, it usually takes a backseat to other stuff – like doing what you actually do. Profitably is a Web-based platform that can help you plan for the future. You can try out its revenue forecasting and planning features for free, but if you want to really go beyond the basics and include measurement and tracking features, you can sign up for a plan for as low as $33.33 a month. Not much of an investment for doing something that can ultimately pay huge dividends.

6. Onepager: For Setting Up a Website Fast

If time and budget constraints have stopped you from putting together a website, why not put together a simple landing page? Onepager is a very easy and simple way to create and maintain a visually appealing website. Just enter your company name, logo, tagline, content about who you are and what you do, and you’re good to go. You can customize the page a bit with themes, style and layout options, and also add photos, a newsletter sign up, hours, contact info and social media buttons. I tried it out, and it took me all of 10 minutes.

Onepager is really inexpensive, too: only $10/month for a month-to-month subscription or $8/month if you sign up for a whole year. That price includes hosting and unlimited bandwidth, which is a great deal.

Image by Flickr user joiseyshowaa (Creative Commons)

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Tags: business planning, email, office hours, Ohours, OnePager, OneSky, Profitably, Qidiq, sales, small business resources, surveys, Technology, translation services, Website, Yesware
Posted in Small Business, Technology | 3 Comments »

10 Super Useful iPhone Apps You Need, Part 2

October 5th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series 10 Super Useful iPhone Apps

Social Media Examiner published a great blog post recently on social media marketing apps that I just pulled out and went through, pulling the most useful ones for small business owners out. I already wrote up the first 10 I liked the best; here are the second 10.

NetNewswire: This RSS reader for iPhone syncs with Google Reader so you can access all the blogs you love to read while out and about.

Peak Meetings: Capture and organize your thinking to make meetings more efficient when ideas hit you rather than waiting until you are in front of a computer or have a piece of paper handy.

PhotoRocket: You can share multiple photos with friends by creating PhotoRocket Galleries, which are customizable spaces that let post photos via Facebook, Twitter or your email contact list.

PitchEngine: Want to get press? This is social platform will help you get the word out about your company, products and services.

QuickVoice Recorder: The name of this app says it all. It is a full-featured iPhone/iPad voice recorder, so you can record your ideas, voice memos, voice email, dictation, lists, meetings, classes or entire lectures.

SocialMedia: #socialmedia.com hosts a weekly Twitter event every Tuesday focused on – any guesses? – social media.

Spout: This app lets you stream news, messages, tweets and comments from your Facebook, Twitter or Google Reader (RSS) feeds.

Vignature: Access PDF docs, like expense reports, consent forms, sales contracts and approvals, from email or Dropbox, open them in this app, sign them and return them to sender.

Wired PR Works: This PR and social media marketing app lets you access tips, ideas and strategies to grow your business.

Xmarks: You can view bookmarks and open tabs from Firefox, IE, Chrome, or Safari right on your iPhone or iPod Touch from this app, making Web browsing super easy while on the go.

Image by Flickr user Yutaka Tsutano (Creative Commons)

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Tags: apps, blogs, Dropbox, email, Facebook, Google Readers, iOS, ipad, iPhone, Marketing, pr, RSS, social media, Twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 1 Comment »

3 Mistakes to Avoid When Using Your Email List

September 28th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

So you gather emails through networking, attending conferences, your newsletter sign-up and contact forms your Web visitors must fill out before they download that ebook. Now you have a comprehensive list, but it’s just sitting there.

Using that email list to stay in touch with your clients, reach prospective clients, convert sales, and spread thought leadership – in other words, using your email list to grow your business – should be easy, right? After all, you already have the upper hand – all of those people willingly gave you their email address!

Just avoid the following three mistakes to keep that email list intact – and growing:

1. Don’t push your products or services.

If you turn your emails and newsletters into advertisements for your company’s products and services, you’ll lose subscribers at a fast clip. Yes, you can mention a product or service in the sidebar as a highlighted item, or maybe illustrate how you helped a client with a mini case study. You can also offer a special promotion; just be sure that the focus is not always on you.

2. Don’t discuss irrelevant topics.

While every waking minute of yours may be consumed with building your brand and company, your email list is not interested in the tiny matters that keep you up all night. Keep them interested by offering them industry news and trends that could affect them, tips and tricks, and other helpful advice that is relevant, interesting, and useful.

3. Don’t be boring.

Provide something interactive or engaging in your emails and newsletters, whether it’s a link to a video, a new webinar, a podcast, a game, or something else that is fun. In this technology age, when we are constantly bombarded by a zillion things trying to grab our attention, make the extra effort to bring something fun to your subscribers’ inbox.

Image by Flickr user Jason Rogers (Creative Commons)

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Tags: advertising, content, email, email list, Email marketing, Marketing, newsletters, promotions
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing | 2 Comments »

Inbound Marketing and Online Advertising: Just-Released Stats and What They Mean for Your Business

August 5th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Inbound Marketing

I recently downloaded the just published “The Marketing Data Box,” and I found the information super useful for decisions related to online marketing. In this, the first of a two-part series, we’ll look at data on inbound marketing and online advertising; in the second, we’ll look at video marketing and mobile advertising.

So, where should you be spending your marketing dollars? Let’s begin by looking at the big picture. When it comes to marketing online, B2B and B2C businesses use:

Websites: 88%
Email: 84%
Social media: 66%
Paid search: 50%
Banner ads: 41%

If you are still relying on traditional marketing channels like direct mail and print ads because you think that online marketing is too costly, consider these numbers:

In 2011, the average cost per lead for outbound marketing was $373, while inbound was $143.

The least expensive inbound channels are blogs, social media and SEO, so if you are using those, you are likely spending your time and money well.

The most expensive? Paid search (PPC). (The most expensive source of leads overall, by the way, is trade shows.)

Don’t count out paid search, though, because it is still less expensive than traditional marketing or advertising. If you want to try it, use these numbers to help you decide where to spend your online ad dollars:

Google’s Ad Network reaches 93.1% of Americans online, followed by Yahoo Network Plus with an 85.5% reach, AOL Advertising with 85% and Yahoo Sites with 84.5%. Facebook.com crossed into the top 10 for the first time in January 2011 with a 72.3% reach.

So if you had to choose between advertising on Google and advertising on Facebook, you’ll need to know the demographics of your target market.

According to Gallup, men (42%) are about as likely as women (45%) to have a Facebook page. However, men (63%) are 12.5% more likely than women (56%) to say they visit Google in a given week. Overall, 40% more U.S. adults say they use Google in a typical week (60%) than have a Facebook page (43%).

“The Marketing Data Box” is a quarterly series published by Watershed Publishing’s Data Insights, based on HubSpot’s data and using graphics supplied by MarketingCharts.com.

Image by Flickr user epSos.de (Creative Commons)

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Tags: blogs, email, Facebook, Google, Inbound Marketing, Marketing, onine advertising, paid search, pay-per-click, PPC, seo, social media, The Marketing Data Box, websites
Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »

Small Biz Resource Tip: LOQMail

March 28th, 2011 :: Karen Axelton

LOQMail

If your business requires sending sensitive files and email messages, you’re probably even more concerned about security than the average small business owner. Enter LOQMail, an email solution that integrates with your current email system to ensure documents and email messages are delivered safely and received only by the intended recipient. Use LOQMail with Outlook, Windows Mail, Mac Mail and Thurnderbird. Email messages are double-encrypted to protect header information, recipient information, subject line, body of the email and attachments. And since the messages are transmitted over a private network, there’s no threat of spam, malware or phishing.

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Tags: email, Resources, Technology
Posted in Customer Service, Resources, Small Business, Technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Definitive Guide to Retaining Email Subscribers

February 18th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series email marketing

In my previous blog post in this series, I wrote about how to build an email list; the post is based on what I learned from an eBook called the Bionic List Building Guide, which was published last summer by Lyris, a provider of integrated online marketing products (email marketing, Web analytics, search marketing, mobile marketing, etc.). I forgot about it for six months and just stumbled upon it recently.

According to Lyris, legally acquiring new email addresses is the first component of building a list. The second component is to provide valuable content to retain and build trust with subscribers, which I will focus on in this blog post. (The third component is allowing each new subscriber to manage their opt-in preferences, which I am not going to cover because it’s standard practice.)

Once you get a new subscriber, you need to cement the relationship, begin building trust right away, and make them as happy as the people in the photo. Here are Lyris’ tips, intermingled with my tips:

Keep your opt-in form short. When people subscribe, ask for minimal information: email address, first name and last name. Company name and industry would be OK, too, but keep in mind that the more information you ask for, the lower your conversion rate will be.

Add trust-building statements to the opt-in page. Explicitly state that you will be providing valuable content on a regular basis. Explain what your emails will contain (industry news, tips and tricks, how-tos, guides, etc.) and how often they will be sent.

Follow up with a thank you page. As soon as someone submits a subscription, a thank-you page should load immediately. Here’s what to include in the message: a thank you for joining the list, of course; confirmation of both the information the subscriber just supplied and any steps needed to complete the subscription, such as replying to a confirmation email; and a reminder of the benefits of subscribing to your list. If you provided an incentive to entice people to subscribe, such as a coupon or eBook, add that it will be arriving via email shortly.

Send a “welcome” email. In your message, provide more details on subscription benefits, link to a “preference page” where subscribers can provide more detailed contact information, and include any special subscriber-only offers, coupons, ebooks, white papers, or special reports. This should go without saying, but be sure to label your email as a welcome message in the subject line.

Make their subscription worthwhile! To retain your subscribers, send them information and promotions they can’t get elsewhere. Your emails should include valuable content that your readers can use, such as industry insights, reports, eBooks, white papers, guides, how-tos, product tips and tricks, etc. You also want them to feel special, so give them access to new products or services before they launch, whether it’s beta-testing, sneak peeks, surveys to gauge interest on possible new features, etc.

Don’t bore them. Keep your emails interesting by adding graphics, images, screen shots, video, and audio. Humanize your company with photos of staff, events, and parties; employee profiles; short articles written by key employees; and success stories that customers either wrote or relayed to an employee.

Image by Flickr user Douglas Duffield (Creative Commons)

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Tags: content, email, Email marketing, email marketing subscriptions, Marketing, opt-in forms
Posted in Email marketing, Email Marketing, Marketing, Small Business | No Comments »

Time Management: Easier Said Than Done

June 1st, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.

Peter Drucker is a genius, and for good reason. That’s his quote above. A friend of mine used to work her butt off four days a week for her clients so she could take Fridays off. (I say “used to” because she is no longer a consultant, but instead works more than full-time in a rewarding, high-stress job at a non-profit.)

Peters nik/Flickr

I would love to work part-time or four days a week or, while we’re at it, not at all, and still earn what I earn now. My problem is time management (I should probably read some Drucker!). Some days I am laser focused and bang out my work, but most days I struggle. I’ll constantly check email, Facebook, or remember that I wanted to look up something online. I’ll stare out the window. I’ll do busy-work that is not accomplishing anything (like writing an outline for a blog post instead of just writing it).

Instead of investigating time management best practices, strategies, tips, skills, and advice online, here is how I think I could best manage my time:

Devote chunks of the day to specific tasks. Not a big breakthrough here, but I’ve never done it before so I’d like to see if it would work for me. I’m thinking it should work for me because 1., I like to write tasks down and check them off as I complete them, and 2., It will keep me focused and maybe free up time at the end of the day to goof off. I’ll schedule time to do everything: check and respond to email; check for social media updates; work on my projects, and take breaks.

Shut down the applications I’m not using. When I’m on email, everything else will be closed. When I’m working on a project, the relevant documents will be open and email and IE will be closed.

I am very curious as to what time management strategies you’ve used to stay on task and focused. If I get enough comments, I’ll post your suggestions in an upcoming blog.

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Tags: email, Peter Drucker, small business, social media, time management, web surfing
Posted in small business | 6 Comments »