Improve Your Email Marketing

Look at your inbox. Chances are that it is packed with emails - all screaming for your attention. As a marketer, your job is to cut through the clutter and deliver an engaging email that gets opened and produces results. Here are a few tips that will help you do exactly that.

Give subscribers what they want.

The most impactful thing you can do to improve your email marketing is to send relevant and interesting emails. Why? Because when your subscribers know that there is something valuable on the other side of the subject line, your open rates will skyrocket.

So offer something of value in every email you send, such as industry research, tips and tricks, discounts, and more. Not only will this establish your credibility as an expert, it will reduce spam complaints.

Get to know your readers.

In order to deliver relevant content, you need to understand what your subscribers care about. If you don't already know the answer, you can find out by conducting online surveys or by asking for specific information on your web forms.

Once you know what individual readers want, you can segment them into groups based on their interests. This knowledge will help you send relevant messages to each person. If you don't have the resources (or inclination) to manually track this data, you can use a customer relationship management tool like Infusionsoft to do it for you.

Be consistent.

People (and remember, your prospects are people) gravitate toward things that are familiar. Campaigns that have a consistent look and feel will be more effective in helping your prospects absorb information. That's not to say you can't get creative and mix things up, but you should maintain brand standards in design, tone, and personality, and use the same sender name and address throughout your campaigns.

Top 14 Benefits of Social Media Marketing

There's a lot of fuss surrounding social media these days. If you still haven't jumped on the bandwagon and aren't sure why so many people are making such a big deal about it, here are 14 benefits of social media for your business and you from Success magazine.

For Business:

Establish a Brand and Raise Awareness

Since the majority of the population is already visiting social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, getting your brand name all over those networks can help let people know that you're around. If you have yet to create a company image online, social networks are the place to do it.

Create a fun YouTube video that entertains and informs. Funny videos tend to make their way around the Internet a lot faster than any other kind, so when making a video, keep in mind that you want it to be interesting enough for your target audience to want to share. Using Facebook and Twitter to create a fun online community that your customers will want to visit will boost brand loyalty and drive traffic to your Website, allowing you the chance to make more online sales.

Spy on the Competition

Follow your competitors on Twitter and Facebook and you'll be able to see what they have up their sleeve. Just make sure to provide a better deal than whatever they have going on.

Pitch Products in a More Human, Interactive Way

Since people visit social media sites to get personal rather than be bombarded with ads, discuss your business in a fun way and engage your customers with questions. Ask their opinions and entice them to respond back. This way you're making a valuable connection that will help grow your number of return customers.

Bring Attention to Your Products

Featuring a product on a social media site is one of the fastest ways to bring attention to it. Give a promotion along with it for your online community members and watch your sales skyrocket.

Increase Customer Loyalty And Trust

Speaking to your customers in a personal way will make them feel like they are talking to a friend, not a company. This will help build their trust in you, which will make them do business with you rather than your competition. It will also improve the chances of customer recommendations.

Listen to Your Customer's Opinion

Social media sites are an awesome way to see what your target audience is saying about your company or your products. Take their constructive criticism and use it to enhance your product to better meet their needs.

Conduct Market Research

Listen to what your customers say about your products and track what links they click on and you'll begin to see what your customers like and respond to. People love to express their opinions on social media sites, which will allow you to hear the truth. Then you can use your new-found information to tweak your product or service to please them as well as continue to post more information and links that they will enjoy.

Strengthen Customer Service

Social media networks allow your company to answer your customers' questions and concerns directly in a timely manner. This will improve customer satisfaction and also save you monéy on long distance customer service phone calls.

For You:

Build Your Personal Reputation

Social networks allow you to get your name out to the world and talk about things that matter to you. This will help you build a good online reputation, which is critical nowadays if you're looking for a job or even a new business contact.

Display Your Resume

LinkedIn allows you to display your full resume online for any future employers or recruiters to see. This will help bring you new opportunities that would'ever have existed otherwise.

Find a Job

Jobs are posted every minute on social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter along with the links or information you need to apply for them.

Showcase Your Talents And Establish Yourself as an Expert

If you're passionate about a certain subject, whether it's work-related or a hobby, the Internet is a great place to show off your knowledge. Soon people will be coming to you for the breaking information on that topic, and talking about you to friends.

Enhance Your Business Contacts and Enhance Personal Relationships

Through professional sites like LinkedIn, you can build your number of business contacts and enhance your reputation as an expert in your industry. You can also connect with those long-lost high school and college classmates, old colleagues, and out-of-town family members.

Share Information with Like-Minded People

Connect with other professionals in your field to share information. Where else would you be able to connect with industry professionals across the globe to swap stories and advice?

For Social Media Marketing, Hire SEO expert and increase your brand awareness.

Gmail to Use More HTML5 Features

Many of the upcoming Gmail features will use HTML5. Adam de Boor, a Gmail engineer, said that Google's goal is to make Gmail load in less than a second.

"If the browser supports CSS3, Gmail will render the pages using these specifications, rather than its traditional approach of using the Document Object Model (DOM). The company has found that using CSS3 can speed the rendering time by 12 percent. (...) Gmail will also make use of HTML5's database standards. Now, the e-mail service uses Google Gears to store mail for offline reading, but over time that will migrate to the HTML5 standards." Read More>>

Twitter to Launch New SEO Friendly Features

Twitter has become a great tool for online marketing due to its popularity.

Online businesses use tweets as a springboard for their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign. Tweets attract legit, consistent traffic that can boost search engine rankings.

Reports claim that the social media site is about to launch a new feature, which is aimed for developers. It will allow annotations to be embedded into tweets, giving more and updated information.

Currently, Tweeter members can tweet up to 140 characters, which will be bolstered once the new feature is made available. It will also give users the chance to add meta data, including websites, locations, reviews, and events.

By integrating meta data, SEO campaigns will be able to attract more traffic for advertisements.

However, at this time, all this is still speculation. The best move that online retailers can do is to create a Twitter profile to prepare for possible SEO benefits.