Social media marketing (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) is one of the hottest trends in online marketing. Companies of all sizes and in all industries are using Twitter to engage with their audience and to promote their brand.  But many of these companies are inexperienced in social media marketing and don’t use it properly, which undermines their ultimate goal of increasing leads and sales.

Not only can a poorly designed social media marketing campaign be ineffective, it can damage your brand and drive away customers.  Just ask Walmart, Ford and KFC who all had major online marketing blunders that cost them.

There are 2 MAJOR common social media marketing mistakes we see.

1. Trying to sell online

This is very hard for most companies and people to understand. I’ll make it simple for you – Don’t Try To Sell Your Product/Service On Social Media Sites!! – period, end of story.  Why, you ask? Social media is often likened to a party; the same etiquette used at an offline event should be followed online.  If I walked into your party and immediately started trying to sell you things, you would make an excuse to leave. Everyone would talk about me negatively behind my back. I might not be invited to other events and likely wouldn’t make a single sell.  Guess what – the same thing happens online too.

The #1 question we get is, “So when do I promote my __________?”  You don’t. You drive your followers/friends to your website or landing page. Your website is your money site.

You should only send sales messages to people that have specifically opted in for them.  An example would be sending an exclusive discount offer as a special gift to fans on your Facebook fan page. But notice, I framed it as a “special gift” for being our fan. Not a blatant, mass sales pitch.

2. Not engaging with people

Another concept that’s hard for people to follow is that social media is for one-on-one or many-to-many engagement. To use social media effectively, you must create a two-way communication with people.  A real discussion.

That means listening and interacting with people instead of broadcasting one way marketing messages.

One way to engage your followers is to give them free, credible information (not just yours).  For example, if you own a flower shop,  you could send out notices when it’s time to replant certain flowers or plants. Your followers, who are likely flower/plant lovers, will be grateful that you provided this information. They may even send you a message asking a few questions on what type of soil they should use. So, you respond with the answer and maybe a brief sentence or two letting them know that you carry that brand of soil in your store and they can go to your website to get more detailed information on the product.

This kind of customer engagement builds brand loyalty and repeat customers which is what it’s all about from a business standpoint.

So before you begin a social media marketing campaign, develop a strategy about HOW you plan to engage with people and your customers.

You should also have a sales funnel designed and ready to go BEFORE implementing any campaign. However, that’s another subject we’ll have to cover in a future posts.

Have you ever committed these mistakes? Leave a comment and let us know what you think by clicking on the “Comments” link below.

Our team sees a lot of web properties and our unscientific estimate is 80% of the websites out there SUCK!! I’m willing to bet yours does too. Here’s why.

People fall in love with flashy, artsy, websites with all the bells and whistles. We hear it all the time…”Don’t you love my new website? I had my web designer use a lot of flash on the site. Isn’t it great!!”  Our answer – NOT. Unless you’re an artist, entertainer, designer, etc. you don’t need a “flashy” site.

We contend that a business website has only three purposes:

1. Engage customers
2. Generate leads
3. Generate sales

Anything else is superfluous. In fact, it can hurt you. For example, search engine spiders can’t read flash. So if your site has a lot of flash throughout, it’s hurting your Search Engine Optimization. It’s likely you’re losing potential traffic that might visit your site if it were ranked higher on Google and the other search engines.

If you’re not getting the traffic, guess who is….that’s right – Your Competitors.

For each website that isn’t optimized, it’s like a leaky bucket letting money out through each hole.

Below are some of the common biggest mistakes we see in most websites:

1. Treating your website like a business card.  A business card is static and designed to give brief, one-way information. A website is dynamic and ­should be designed to give full, two-way communication, secure leads and generate sales. Many companies just have the basic, About Us, Services, Contact Us, Product/Service Information and that’s it. Big mistake.
2. Poor SEO. SEO is Search Engine Optimization and we will talk about this in other posts on this blog but suffice to say, this is a key way to organically get visitors to your site.
3. Poor Design. Don’t make it difficult for visitors to find your product(s) and/or service(s), or answers to questions. Proper navigation and a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page go a long way to generating a sale.

So how can we optimize our existing web properties? Well, here are two MAJOR tips that will help you generate increased sales immediately.

First, add a blog to your website. Many companies are now doing this and reaping the benefits. There are four reasons to start a blog.

1. The unique content you post in your blog will increase your Page Ranking with the search engines which will drive more traffic to your site.
2. You are now giving consumers a reason to go to your site instead of looking at your old “business card” site that never changes or adds value to them.
3. You are positioning your company and yourself as a leader who is very knowledgeable about your industry/field. Customers want to buy from leaders.
4. People still see blogs as news instead of sales. This may seem a minor distinction but it is powerful. At least for now, people trust blogs more than a website as a reliable source for information; therefore, you can put subtle sales pitches in your blog that will convert much higher than putting the same information on your website. Product reviews are an example. However, give credible information or your customers will make you pay for lying.

Second, send people to the information they are looking for instead of your company homepage. It’s a fact that the more steps visitors have to take to get what they want the more people you will lose in the sales cycle. Shorten the cycle by including links to specific pages on your website or landing pages with the information the visitor is looking for.

For example, if you send an email advertisement for a product promotion, don’t send people to your homepage, www.yourcompany.com. Send them to a page specially designed for your product (aka landing page) that gives them some information and collects their contact information for your database.

Landing pages are a key factor in effective web design and lead generation. We’ll follow up on that subject in later posts.

Was this post helpful? Let us know what you think – leave a comment by clicking on “Comments” below.

Email marketing is not as easy as it used to be. Gone are the days of people opening every email and readily reading your content. Today, email is too closely associated with bulk mailings, spam and viruses. Savvy email marketers implement these 8 essential techniques to boost the success rate of their email marketing campaigns.  In this post, we assume you already have an email list. We will address how To Obtain a Huge Email Subscriber List in future posts.

1. Determine A Clear Goal For Your Email Marketing Campaign In Advance

Decide what a successful campaign is for you and how you measure it BEFORE beginning your campaign. Is it open rates, number of leads, or total amount of sales?  Sometimes people have unrealistic expectations of their campaign or just don’t know what to expect. Having a pre-determined goal will help you craft a successful campaign.

2. Remember TMAT – Test, Measure, Analyze & Tweak

TMAT maybe the most important factor in a successful email marketing campaign. You must be able to test your message, measure by receiving relevant data such as click through rates, analyze that data effectively to determine trends, and tweak the campaign to make your next email blast more effective.

The key to this methodology is testing. Only use email list serve companies that offer Split Testing Capability.  Split testing allows you to create and send multiple versions of a message (and subscribe forms).  For example, we might send a message to a small test group from our list about a special offer; we can have different variations of the SUBJECT line in the email blast. That way we can tell which one yielded the highest open and conversation rate. Then we use the best performing SUBJECT line and send the message to our entire list.

If you’re serious about email marketing, you MUST use split testing.  If your present company doesn’t offer split testing, get rid of them. We suggest using Aweber. They are the email list serve company of choice for internet marketing professionals because of the features they offer like split testing.

3. Segment Your List For Better Targeting

The flexibility and economies of email allow you to target with precision. So, make the most of this advantage.  Use the data you’ve collected on sign-up to segment your list so that your email marketing campaign would be more targeted. For example, if you’re making an offer applicable to two different audiences — IT professionals and marketing managers — write two versions of your email marketing message. The more you customize your email to specific target groups, the higher conversion rate you’ll have. Important Tip – only use email list serve providers that allow you to have an unlimited number of segmented lists. Once again, we suggest using Aweber.

4. Use Auto-responders To Build Report With Your List

Auto-responders are pre-scheduled emails that are sent to your list after a subscriber has taken an action. For example, once a person subscribes to your list, a confirmation and thank you email are sent. However, the best email list serve companies allow you to send an unlimited number of auto-responder messages scheduled well in advance.

Use this function to build report and “train” your subscribers. For example, once a person subscribes to your list send them “free” reports or series of emails over a few days (keep it under 7) with good, credible information related to your industry. Do not just talk about your company – this is not a sells pitch. It gets your subscriber used to receiving emails from you, opening them, and they begin to look forward to reading them because of all the great content.

5. Pay Attention To How Your Message Is Structured

How your email marketing message is structured determines 50% of its success. Things to pay attention to are:

• Customize the FROM, TO, & SUBJECT fields
  • Use Your Name and Company in the FROM field
  • Address Recipients with Their Name in the TO field
  • Use attention grabbing verbiage in the SUBJECT field
    • You have only 60 characters
    • Use questions
    • Use testers
    • Use deadlines
• Concentrate on the body of the message
  • Put key message in the first few sentences
  • Put hyperlink next to Call To Action
• Use the right signature
• Include additional sales pitch in signature

6. Don’t Forget the Preview Pane

Many of your recipients, particularly business people, use an email client with a preview pane that displays the first few lines of an email.  They use this to scan the message and determine if they want to open it.  Therefore, the preview pane should be filled with the unique selling point of your campaign, your most intriguing benefit, or your best offer.  Always, put one of these points in the first few lines of your email message.

7. Create a Clear Call to Action in Email Marketing Campaigns

One of the crucial elements of an email marketing campaign is a clear call to action. That’s why you’re sending the message. You’re trying to get the reader to take some kind of action such as going to your landing page.

It’s very important that you lay out exactly what you want the recipients of your message to do. Don’t distract with too many links or offers and design the message to make that path clear for the recipient, and easy to follow. This can be as simple as “Click here for a 20% off on your next purchase.” Never state an offer without associating it with the response instructions.

8. Make Landing Pages Fit Your Email Marketing Campaign

Landing pages are an essential part of every email marketing campaign. Landing pages have one purpose – convert the visitor into a lead or sale.  The landing page should include the same marketing message as the email but possibly with more details that couldn’t fit into the email.

Landing pages should make it extremely easy for your visitor to take whatever action you want. For example, a person following a link from an email marketing message should expect purchasing to be simple (by easily finding forms above the fold and having them prefilled with relevant data, for example).  The page should fit the design of the email message as well.  If not, they may be reluctant to make a purchase.  Pay attention to the colors, the images, font size, but also to the wording and tone of the landing page.

Follow these tips to create a successful email marketing campaign. Did we leave anything out? Do you have any additional tips? Let us know by leaving a comment and/or vote below clicking on one of the links below.

If you’re not using video marketing to promote your business, product/service, and/or yourself (we’ll have later post on why you should be promoting you as well as your company), you’re making a HUGE mistake.

Video Marketing is one of the hottest craze on the Internet right now and for good reason too. Internet Video Marketing benefits include:

1. Ranking higher on search engines
2. 52% of Internet users watch video
3. 27% of Internet users exclusively go to the Internet to watch video
4. Web Videos are one of the most “sticky” (stay on a particular webpage) parts of the Internet
5. Online Video Marketing creates a bond and attraction between viewer and the people on video
6. Most companies aren’t using Internet Video Marketing so it gives users a strong competitive advantage

We believe Video Marketing is a MUST for almost all companies. Most of the benefits are listed above but another lesser known fact is that YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world. That’s right, not Yahoo, not Bing (formerly MSN) but YouTube. Literally millions and millions of people are searching YouTube daily, so if you’re not on that Social Media site you’re losing out to your competitor who is.

However, the key is most of your competitors are probably not using online video marketing yet.  So you can be an early adapter and reap the benefits. For example, if you search for the term fishing equipment in Google, first you’ll find that photos and videos are prominently displayed in the organic results. Second you’ll see that over 22,000,000 sites reference the keywords – Fishing + Equipment.  (Please note that your search engine research may vary slightly from the above for various reasons like when you try this)

Now go on over to YouTube and type in the same keywords. You’ll see only 26,000 videos referencing those keywords. Now just think about that for a minute – You can get on the #2 search engine in the world with well over 21,000,000 less competitors, still rank highly on the #1 search engine and do all this for FREE.  So now do you see why we recommend clients to do video marketing.

So what kind of videos can you do?

1. Product or service demonstrations
2. Customer testimonials
3. Reviews

There are many other types of videos you can do.  But there is a strategy involved in Video Marketing including what specific subjects and tags to use for your videos, what equipment to use, how long it should be and where and how to post them to name a few.

Was this information useful? Let us know by voting and/or leaving a comment by clicking on one of the links below.