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November 19, 2015
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5 rules for the new era of email marketing

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E-Marketing

Even amid the explosion of digital marketing technologies over the past few years, marketers keep returning to email. The reason is clear — for the 10th consecutive year, email is the highest ROI-generating channel for marketers. For every $1 invested, email marketing returns $38. It’s 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter combined.

That said, email marketing today is far different than it was in 1995 when everyone was using AOL and Gmail was just a sparkle in two young engineers’ eyes. Modern marketers looking to engage customers, differentiate their brand, and grow their businesses need to live and breathe these five new rules of email marketing.

Long live the DIY marketer
The rule goes something like this: first technology makes things possible, then it makes things easy. We’ve hit that point in the marketing technology continuum. Sophisticated technology processes that were once left to the IT professionals are now possible for every marketer in any business or industry. Companies like Optimizely, Squarespace, Unbounce, and Shopify are leading the DIY marketing revolution. Complex tasks that used to take weeks (or even months) and an entire IT staff to accomplish can now be done in minutes. Marketers now own their destiny — and that means there’s no excuse for any marketing communications, including email, to be off-brand or off-message.

Read more: 5 rules for the new era of email marketing

November 17, 2015
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5 Myths of Social Media Marketing

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Social Media Marketing

Have you tied your social media efforts to a positive ROI?

Or, have you heard claims that social media marketing just isn’t worth the effort for B2B companies?

B2B social media has gotten a bad rap in the marketing community, with many marketers claiming a low ROI and seeing a lack of interest from prospects. A 2014 report from Forrester found that 26 out of 30 B2B companies failed to create compelling content that engaged their audiences, losing sales and buyers to competitors in the process. With such dismal numbers, it’s clear that B2B companies need to rethink their content and the way they interest potential customers via social media.

With an increasing number of B2B companies adopting social media marketing, a number of myths about it have spread as well. These misconceptions can be laughable at best – but also damaging to your marketing and sales efforts at worst. In this article, I’ll dispel five myths about B2B social media marketing once and for all, and show you why a robust social media strategy is vital to increasing sales, expanding networks, and growing revenue.

Read more: 5 Myths of Social Media Marketing

 

November 12, 2015
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5 Fast Fixes to Jumpstart Your Email Marketing Strategy

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E-Marketing

Sending out an email newsletter may seem like an easy task, but if you think that all you have to do is make a template, add in new content and hit send, you’re not likely to see the results you want.

Email marketing requires a lot of careful planning and work to be effective, but when it’s done right, it can drive traffic to your website, increase your customer base and boost sales. So how can you make the most of your email marketing campaigns? It’s all about getting to know what your subscribers want, creating quality content and taking advantage of all the great email marketing tools at your disposal.

Ready to improve your email campaigns? Here are five great email marketing tips from entrepreneurs and digital marketing experts.

Read more: 5 Fast Fixes to Jumpstart Your Email Marketing Strategy

 

November 10, 2015
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4 Key Principles Every Social Media Marketer Should Understand

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Social Media Marketing , ,

It’s not uncommon to encounter broad sweeping statements like “social media marketing is great for business,” or “social media is the future of online marketing.” However, while we’re subjected to the watered down rants of pundits who praise the perks of building huge followings on sites like Facebook and Twitter, many times we never really get to the real meat of the matter, which is how to do well with social media marketing (SMM).

Basic Fundamentals
Any company can set up a few social networking accounts and get started with SMM in a single day, but it can take months to years to become proficient at persuading an online crowd for the benefit of a particular brand or business.
Running comparative analysis tests and studying consumer and social psychology can help build experience over time, but prior to that it is imperative to become familiar with the basic fundamentals and components of a strong and well-diversified social media marketing campaign. In the following paragraphs we’ll reveal four key principles that every marketer should become familiar with on their road to social media success:

Read more: 4 Key Principles Every Social Media Marketer Should Understand

October 30, 2015
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Teaming Up Social Media with Email Marketing to Establish Your Online Presence.

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E-Marketing, Social Media Marketing ,

Social media and email marketing are two of the most popular online marketing techniques. They are very different, but that should not stop you from using them together to get more out of both.
Email is a highly effective marketing tool, and your email list can become an essential marketing asset as you grow it. Social media provides a different way to communicate with your audience, and you can use it to enhance your brand image and grow your reputation.
Rather than just focusing on one or the other, however, here are some ideas for integrating your social media and email marketing to give both of them a boost.

Make Social Icons Visible in Your Emails

One of the simplest ways to integrate your email and social media marketing is to use clear social icons in your emails. Put them right at the top of each email so that they cannot be missed, and you may even want to remind your email subscribers to share the email.
Another option is to send emails reminding your subscribers about your social media networks and that they can benefit from signing up to follow you. Provide them with some great reasons to follow you, and you could give your number of friends or followers a boost.

Read more: Teaming Up Social Media with Email Marketing to Establish Your Online Presence.

October 29, 2015
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How to Build Profitable Customer Relationships Using Email Marketing

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E-Marketing

Like any relationship, your relationship with your customers is built on trust and communication. Happy customers equal a more successful business. Email marketing can help you get there, but only if you’re doing it correctly.

Here are seven simple ways you can use email marketing to build profitable customer relationships:
1. Be Consistent

Imagine if you went for weeks without hearing from your significant other. You wouldn’t like that, would you? Your customers appreciate consistent communication, too.

To stay connected, send them a regular newsletter. And if you say you’ll send a weekly newsletter, make sure you deliver it weekly. If and when they have a problem that your business can solve, you’ll be the first person they turn to.

Email autoresponders (aka follow up messages) are another great way of staying in touch on a regular basis. The key advantage is that you can automate these so they go out to every new customer at a set interval.

2. Get Personal with Your Messages

Having a relationship with your customers means you know who they are on a personal level. Segmentation is a great way to make your email marketing personal to your customers.

It starts with gaining an understanding of who your customers are, what their needs are, what struggles they experience, and what success looks like for them. A great example of this is Marcus Sheridan, who successfully launched a fiber-glass pool company in the midst of an economic slump, thanks to his ability to understand his clients’ needs and meet those needs with education.

Send your customers highly relevant content that satisfies their needs and interests, and there’s no telling what you can accomplish.

3. Be Clear and Direct

There’s nothing more frustrating that not knowing what someone wants. Being clear and direct in your emails to your customers only strengthens your relationship. When they sign up to receive emails from you, tell them exactly what they can expect to receive from you. When you send them emails, make sure you tell them what you want them to do with a clear call to action. Try to keep your calls to action to a minimum in your messages.

4. Provide Relevant Solutions

This one ties back to being personal. The more you know about your customers, the better equipped you’ll be to provide them with the content they’re looking for.

Before you hit “send,” ask yourself, “Does it serve me or my reader?” If it’s not serving your reader, don’t send it. Find a way to make what you want match with what your customer wants.

Another great way to strengthen customer relationships is to ensure that your customers know you value them. Who doesn’t love to feel important and appreciated. By rewarding your customers with exclusive content, information, discounts, etc., you deepen the relationship you have with them.

Read more: How to Build Profitable Customer Relationships Using Email Marketing

 

October 27, 2015
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Virtual Wheaties Box: The New Era of Social Media Marketing

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Social Media Marketing

The idea of using celebrities as a means to promote a product isn’t anything new. Remember the Wheaties box? Thirty years ago, getting on the Wheaties box was the pinnacle of celebrity endorsements. I still remember sitting at the kitchen table when I was eight or nine years old, eating my cereal and staring at a cardboard box with Michael Jordan’s picture staring back at me. Later, when I was a teenager, the celebrity “Got Milk” ads became my favorite part of flipping through any teen magazine. Do you remember the Backstreet Boys milk ad? I do, and so do thousands of other digital natives. From TV, to radio, to print, celebrities ruled the marketing world.

But now, with the rise of social media, celebrities don’t even need a photo shoot or TV commercial to become a company’s new spokesperson. All they need is an Instagram (or YouTube) account, free product samples, and a dab of creativity. If you don’t have the money to launch a big advertising initiative, it’s no problem. For companies that are looking to reach a certain user base, there are plenty of famous Instagrammers out there who will tweet a picture and an endorsement for a few bucks. They get to build their brand name and you get to dip a toe into the world of celebrity spokespeople. Not a bad deal, right?

In the last couple of months, though, it’s become clear that not all celebrities are savvy advertisers. While sometimes the product pushes are innocuous enough, recently one “celebrity” posted a poorly vetted endorsement that caused quite a bit of fall out. A few weeks back, a pregnant Kim Kardashian posted an Instagram photo of herself and a bottle of prescription morning sickness pills from Duchesnay USA. She raved about the drug and urged her followers to talk to their doctors about using it. The problem was she failed to mention the half-dozen side effects of the pills-a faux pas that wasn’t only misleading, but against the law. Thankfully, the Food and Drug Administration took notice and demanded she remove the post.

While Kardashian removed the post quickly, her actions initiated a hot debate across the web, leading many to wonder who should be responsible for monitoring product endorsements on social media sites. Should the FDA be scrolling through hundreds of thousands of posts looking for offenders, or should the social media site itself be responsible for censoring such content?
Read more: Virtual Wheaties Box: The New Era of Social Media Marketing

October 16, 2015
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How To Start Investing In Social Media Marketing The Right Way; by Forbes

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Social Media Marketing

If you have a business, you need to be on social media – it really is that simple. A business without a social media presence is like a driver cruising down the street at night with no headlights. It’s dangerous, and it significantly lowers the probability you’ll end up where you want to be (and even if you do, it’s going to take you a lot longer to get there).

There’s no question that social media is a key factor to success in business these days. But how do you pay for it? How do you find the time to manage your accounts?

First, let’s get one thing straight. There’s a lot you can do on social media for free. You can set up a Facebook account and start posting, just like you can set up a Twitter feed and start tweeting. The problem, of course, is your reach. Because so much information is being shared on these social platforms, the networks themselves have no choice but to filter out some updates to be seen by their intended recipients and to let others go unseen.

Facebook, for instance, states that, “Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person.”

Read more: How To Start Investing In Social Media Marketing The Right Way

October 13, 2015
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New Web trends: Immersive Interaction Design

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Website Content ,

The wheel of progress is changing what we think of as “new” or “old,” and users can easily scorn the sites and apps they loved only a few months ago. But for every door that technology closes, a new one is opened. The Good News… Since inception TotalWeb Partners has building the immersive interaction designs into all sites we build.

Below we’ve collected some of the modern IxD techniques that users are flocking to. Some are genuinely new, while others are just new takes on old ideas. Either way, they’ll help you stay ahead of the curve…and the crushing wheel of progress.

1. Animation & Transitions
When it comes to interaction design, one of the most popular concepts is animation and animated effects. Animation can include anything from a cool hover state effect to a full-screen cartoon that plays in the background.

Animations may not be new to interaction design, but their popularity is really only possible thanks to developments in HTML5, Javascript, and CSS. While they were once considered an aesthetic luxury (“Wow, the icon bounces!”) during the age of Flash, they are now becoming a functional necessity (“Ugh, the icon doesn’t do anything except bounce?!”).

Read more: New Web trends: immersive interaction design

October 8, 2015
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Five Email Marketing Practices That Need to Die

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E-Marketing

More than 122 billion emails are sent every hour, demonstrating that email is a powerful medium that will continue to be a reliable method for companies to gain and retain customers.

With that staggering statistic in mind, marketers must master the art of engaging content when competing with a cluttered inbox.

Unfortunately, some marketers still dilute ROI by engaging in email marketing practices that are hurting business.

When refining your email marketing strategy, consider leaving these deadly practices behind.

1. Hiding Opt-Outs
2. Designing for Desktops
3. Neglecting Visuals
4. Forgetting About Social
5. Ignoring Lead Generation

Read more: Five Email Marketing Practices That Need to Die

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