Tag Archives: digital marketing manager

by

12 Twitter Tips that Increased My Twitter Followers by 328%

Increasing Twitter Followers - Follow Me Source - www.websiteandtechnology.comBy following the advice of influencers for digital marketing and social media marketing, I have been practicing a variety of Twitter activities to grow my Twitter following. Through my experiments, I increased my Twitter followers by 328% in 2 weeks.

Since my last post instead of blogging, I have been busy testing different Twitter activities to identify what works to increase my Twitter followers, and today, I am sharing share my findings with you.

Before dedicating the time to building a Twitter following, I honestly didn’t understand the value of Twitter. Now, after spending some time on Twitter, I am a Twitter believer, and I see the value of including Twitter in your social media marketing mix.

Twitter is a casual forum for buyers and sellers to connect. By following industry influencers, I gained access to news and resources that I hadn’t seen before. Also, I connected with fellow digital marketing managers and social media managers and discovered what they needed to help reach their goals.

With Twitter, You can Connect with Your Target Audience by

  • Providing information they need to make purchasing decisions
  • Giving them information to satisfy their needs
  • Giving them tips to better use your products or services
  • Starting two-way conversations
  • Building relationships

Before diving into Twitter, I identified the following items

  • My target audience
  • My goal to increase my number of followers that meet my target audience criteria
  • Find and Follow my market influencers – find experts using wefollow.com or twibes.com

Twitter Hashtags Source - http://www.waftr.com/2013/04/how-to-increase-twitter-followers.html

  • Popular Hashtags used by market influencers
  • Additional Hashtags for my market to use in my tweets – Some of these Hashtags are my keywords. Test by using the URL https://twitter.com/hashtag/(yourkeyword)

12 Twitter Tips that Increased my Twitter Followers by 328%

Follow Twitter Followers, Tweet, Favorite, Retweet Source - http://blogginggeeks.blogspot.com/2012/12/Increase-twitter-followers.html

  1. Follow relevant followers.
  2. Follow the Influencers – They include journalists, analysts, and bloggers for your market.
  3. Thank people who follow you.
  4. Retweet and Favorite Tweeted Content – Content you think might benefit your target audience.
  5. Tweet or Retweet Events – Inform your target marketing of upcoming webinars or events that are relevant.
  6. Especially, Retweet Relevant Content from Influencers
  7. When Retweeting, include a Quote when Appropriate – Quotes should add value, include a call to action, or link to similar content created by you or someone else.

Effect of quotes on retweets Source - http://heidicohen.com/twitter-16-ways-to-increase-retweets-research/

  1. Hashtags – Tweets with hashtags are posted on twitter streams seen by people outside of your followers.
  2. When Retweeting, include a Quote when Appropriate – Quotes should add value, include a call to action, or link to similar content created by you or someone else.

Effect of hashtags on retweets Source - http://heidicohen.com/twitter-16-ways-to-increase-retweets-research/

  1. Include Hashtags in your Tweets and Retweets – When applicable include hashtags to increase the exposure of your Tweets and potential people to follow you.
  2. For Followers or People that Favorite or Retweet your Tweets – Always thank them, and if they don’t already follow you, encourage them to follow you.
  3. Ask for the Retweet – When appropriate, in your tweets, you can ask your followers to retweet your content to gain exposure of your tweet.
  4. Most importantly, Tweet Consistently – If you don’t tweet consistently, your followers will stop following you and all your hard work to build your followers will be for nothing. I experienced this one the hard way. My followers decreased when I didn’t send and tweets for a couple of days.

Conclusion

To build your Twitter followers, you need to spend time on Twitter and consistently tweet, favorite, and retweet.

Start spending 30 minutes to an hour each day on Twitter applying the tips discussed today, and you can build your followers that meet your target audience criteria.

Once you reach your ideal number of followers, you need to keep tweeting to keep your followers. Consistently tweeting will keep the followers you have and help continue to increase your overall number of followers.
Maintain your Twitter Followers by tweeting consistently Source - girlsleadblog.com

Call-To-Action to Increase your Twitter Followers

  • Identify your Market Influencers
  • Follow your Influencers
  • Follow me on Twitter @cplough
  • Follow your relevant Twitter Followers
  • Identify your Market Hashtags
  • Start Tweeting, Favoriting, and Retweeting
  • Come back tomorrow to learn about How to Write the Perfect Tweet

Major Sources Where I found Twitter Tips to Increase my Twitter Followers by 328%

In other Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook News and Tips

In other Social Media Marketing News, Research, and Tips

by

5 Tips to Create Relevant and Engaging Email Marketing Messages in this Week’s Email Marketing Topic

email click through rate source:http://www.egluu.com/blog/Once your email subscribers open your promotional emails, your email messages need to quickly tell them why they should click through to your website and fulfill your request.

Easier said then done!

First, congratulations on getting your email opened. Now, let’s focus on how you can craft engaging content for your email marketing messages.

According to an Email Benchmark Survey conducted by Marketing Sherpa, 68% of firms say delivering relevant content for their email messages is a top priority. However, only 28% of organizations report sending relevant email communications.

If you prepare email marketing messages with the tips discussed today, you will be able to create relevant and engaging email messages that will increase your click through rates and conversion rates.

Tips to Create Relevant and Engaging Email Marketing Messages

magnetic content to help email click through rates source:http://blog.mailigen.com/increase-email-delivery-of-relevant-content/

  1. Be Human
  2. Personalization
  3. Educational
  4. Entertaining
  5. Timely

1. Being Human

  • Write the content as if you are writing an email to a friend.
  • Make the content light and get rid of that corporate tone.
  • Make it conversational.
  • When applicable, empathize with your email subscribers.

2. Personalize your Email Message

  • Use your email subscriber’s name in the subject line or message.
  • Use dynamic content to insert blocks of content that is tailored to your email subscribers personas.
  • In The Definitive Guide to Engaging Email Marketing from Marketo, the guide provides an example where a company received a 175% lift in conversion rates when the company used dynamic content.

3. Educational

  • Teach your email subscribers about your brand’s benefits.
  • Include a testimonial from your customers.
  • Provide statistics about customers who used your brand.
  • For repeat purchases, provide tips in using your brand.
  • No Hard Sells – Hard selling will alienate your email subscribers.

4. Entertaining

  • Your email messages should leave your email subscribers with a smile or feeling good.
  • Even if your email subscriber does not respond to your email marketing message, leave them with something valuable.

5. Timely

  • Tie real-world events or industry news to what is going on in your email message. For B2B email messages, I’ve had success in tying industry news to the content of my email messages.
  • Any upcoming calendar events to mention in your email? For example, since many families travel during the summer, a luggage store may want to send an email marketing promotion with travel tips plus a discount on a purchase.
  • A Word of Caution – Be sensitive if real-world events negatively impact your email subscribers or if your email subscribers don’t participate in certain holidays.

Example of an Engaging Email Message

Recently, I received a promotional email from a colleague about purchasing her household organizational services. The email message discussed preparing tax documents for Tax Day, April 15th, and organizing tax and any other paperwork lying around the house.

The email mentioned the dreaded event and reminds you of something that you have to do. Her suggestion of taking the time to review and organize all your paperwork makes sense, so she plants the idea of organizing in your head. Then, she mentions the offer to hire her services in helping you organize the papers around your house.

How does the example compare to the 5 tips to create engaging email marketing messages?

relevant and engaging email marketing messages checklist Source: http://www.karencioffiwritingandmarketing.com/2013_07_01_archive.html#.UxhA6D-YZdg

  1. The email was human by empathizing with her email subscribers about April 15th.
  2. The email was personalized when it included my first name.
  3. The email educated me by mentioning the suggestion to organize my tax documents and my other paperwork.
  4. The email entertained me by making me happy with the thought of having a nicer home if I organized all my papers.
  5. Lastly, the email was timely by mentioning the preparation for April 15th.

Conclusion

After you write your next email marketing message, do a check like I just did. Identify the points in your email message that comply with all 5 tips to help you create engaging email marketing messages.

Now, you have what it takes to deliver compelling email messages. Just apply these tips when writing your email content.

When you create engaging content, not only will your content be relevant and timely, you will increase your click through rates and conversion rates.

Keep this blog post to to guide you through the writing process for your next email marketing promotion.

For tips on creating engaging subject lines, check out my email subject lines blog post.

Source

Email Marketing Promotion News and Resources

by

How to Boost SEO by Optimizing Your Content on Every Web Page in this Week’s SEO Discussion

Digital Marketing Managers need to consistently create relevant high quality content in order to maintain it’s search engine rank, and each new page of content on your website needs to be optimized for search correctly.
Components involved in on page seo to optimize every page of content on a website to boost seo source - http://www.reliablesoft.net/5-on-page-seo-techniques-thatll-boost-your-rankings-checklist-included/
Recently, many SEO articles mention the end of the SEO Manager because of Google’s updates in 2013. However, I believe the new role of a SEO Manager includes optimizing new content for SEO.

Items to Optimize for All Pages of Content to Boost SEO

Keywords Phrases

  • Pick 2 to 3 keyword phrases to include in each piece of content to avoid keyword stuffing.
  • Anticipate differences in search behavior and account for them while preparing your keywords for your content.

Title Tags

  • HTML Tag – <title>.
  • Prepare a unique title tag that accurately describes the content on the page.
  • Be brief but descriptive.
  • Can include one keyword phrase.

Meta Description Tag

image of where the meta description is located for a single results on a search engine results page Source - http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development

  • The subheading for this section links to a previous post about meta description tags.
  • HTML for tag – <meta name=”description=” content=”summary of content goes in meta tag”>.
  • Should be unique for each page.
  • Should summarize the content on the page and spark interest to potential readers.
  • Length should be 140 characters or less.

URL Structure

  • URL should display the words contained in the title of the page.
  • Make URL’s as simple as possible.
  • Have one URL for each page.
  • The image below is an example of what a link should look like for a web page about hosting applications.

example of what an URL should and should not look like Source - http://www.gossamer-threads.com/blog/moving-up-the-ranks-an-seo-introduction/

Navigation

  • Should be organized to help visitors quickly find the content they want.
  • Group pages with similar content into categories.
  • Navigation should feel natural to your visitors.

Components of Content on a Page

  • Easy to read and focuses on the topic of your page.
  • Unique, relevant, and helpful information for the visitors.
  • Include your 2 to 3 keyword phrases sporadically throughout the page.
  • Visitors should view your content as authoritative and trustworthy.

Anchor Text for Internal Links within Content of Page

  • The words used to link to another page should be concise and descriptive.
  • Give the reader a clear idea of where they are going.
  • Make the links easy to spot.
  • In the example below, your visitor would only see “Jon Wye’s Customer Designed Belts,” and the rest is the HTML code that is hidden.

example of anchor text code source - http://moz.com/learn/seo/anchor-text

Images & Alt Text

  • Supply Alt Text to describe the images posted on a webpage.
  • Since Google can’t interpret images, Google uses the description of your images in the Alt Text to calculate the overall rank of your web page.
  • When saving images on your website to your images folder, use file names that briefly describe the image.

Heading Tags

vimage of the different heading tags Source:http://blog.woorank.com/2013/04/how-to-use-heading-tags-for-seo/

  • Create Subheadings making it easier for readers to scan and consume your content.
  • Anything in your H1, H2, and H3 heading tags are taken into consideration when ranking your page.
  • Use Heading tags sparingly throughout page.
  • If you want to highlight text but don’t want to use a heading tag, you can bold text using <em>, <strong>, or <b> tags.

Link Building

  • Look for websites that hosts similar content.
  • Submit a request to the sites to host your link.
  • Include internal links to relevant content previously published on your website.

Social Signals via Social Media to Promote Your Content to Boost SEO

image of social signals and seo source- http://stpaulmarketingteam.com/smm/social-media-seo-and-social-signals/

  • When content is published in WordPress, it automatically posts the title of the new content to your social media networks via the Publicize feature.
  • If your website development tool does not provide this feature, you should manually post the title of your new content to all of your social media networks.
  • Place social media icons on each page for your visitors to share with their connections.
  • The more Likes, Favorites, and Reweets you receive the more Social Signals Google notices, and the higher your content can rank.
  • For Facebook and LinkedIn – If you participate in any groups, ask the group manager if you can promote your new content to the group.
  • Post new content to any other Social Media Networks where your target audience participates.
  • Visit last week’s SEO weekly discussion to learn more about using Social Media to boost your SEO efforts.

In the fight for page rank, optimize all your current and new content with the components mentioned in this blog post, and the search engines will recognize the new content.

Keep this blog post on hand to use as a checklist when preparing new web pages, and you should make sure every page of content your website publishes contains all of the items mentioned.

Recent SEO News and Resources

Recent Local Search News and Resources

Recent Link Building News and Resources

Recent PPC Google Adwords News and Resources

by

3 Social Media Strategies to Nurture Customers in this Week’s Social Media Discussion

Nurture customers with social media strategies source - http://blog.proresource.com/how-to-nurture-leads-online-using-social-media/Social Media can be used a variety of ways, but today we will discuss social media strategies to nurture your current customers, to build relationships, and to generate repeat purchases.

As Digital Marketing Managers and Social Media Marketers, delivering on revenue goals is crucial. Nurturing current customers via social media for repeat purchases will help you accomplish this task.

The idea here is to keep your brand and expertise in the forefront of your customers’ minds, so when they need you, they remember to come back to you.

When communicating with your customers, you need to be genuine. If you are not genuine, your customers will see through you, and you will not be successful in building relationships to help meet your revenue goals.

Now, that you realize the importance of being genuine when nurturing your customers, let’s move on.

3 Social Media Strategies to Nurture Customers

  1. Reaffirm your customer purchases after the decision is made – There is time between when the decision is made to make the purchase and the action taken to make the actual purchase. During this time, use social media to reaffirm their choice to purchase your product by featuring customers who discussed their satisfaction after purchasing from your brand.
  2. Create lead nurturing campaigns for your new customers – Just like you have created social media tactics for potential customers, you want to deploy social media tactics for your newer customers to think of you for future purchases. Invite your new customers to follow you on social media networks, welcome them to your social media communities, post helpful information on how they can reap the benefits from their purchases, and create opportunities for cross sell and up sell products.
  3. Listen to your customers social media conversations for new needs, and requirements, or potential jumps to your competitors – By following your customers in social media, you can keep tabs on your customers satisfaction with their purchases. You want to listen for cues on the timing for repeat purchases, cross sell, or up sell opportunities. You can also listen to your customers to discover ideas for more relevant content for your social media and content marketing efforts.

Call to Action to Deploy Social Media Strategies to Nurture Customers

  • Be active on the same social media networks where your customers are active.
  • Look at your current lead nurturing efforts for new business and see if anything can be used to nurture new customers.
  • Create social media posts to welcome new customers to your social media community.
  • Without giving your customers a sales pitch, prepare social media content giving your customers an idea about repeat purchases, cross-sell, and up-sell opportunities.
  • Listen to your customers on social media to identify cues for potential repeat purchases.
  • Where it is genuine and makes sense, like, favorite, or retweet your customers social media posts
  • Listen for potential content ideas.
  • Come back for next week’s social media discussion about social media content ideas.
  • The next Digital Marketer’s blog post will explore the different types of content for your content marketing efforts.

Source for today’s Blog Post

Social Media Events

Social Media Network News and Resources

all social media site news

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Google+

Pinterest

by

How To Improve your Email Marketing Deliverability from the Digital Marketer’s Weekly Email Marketing Topic

Get your email marketing messages delivered to your email subscribers inbox Source:http://www.inwise.com/features/send/high-deliverability.aspxSince only 82% of emails from our email marketing efforts reach the inboxes of our email subscribers, Digital Marketing Manager and Email Marketing Managers need to explore how to improve delivery of email marketing messages to email subscribers’ inboxes to obtain revenue goals. (Source: Return Path’s Email Intelligence Report Q3 2012)

Return Path’s report also indicates that 70% of the emails in SPAM folders are actually legitimate emails.

Given these statistics, let’s talk about how you can deploy email marketing deliverability best practices to boost your email marketing performance and prevent your email messages getting blocked or sent to SPAM folders.

Before diving into the details about best practices for email marketing deliverability below, I want to give you some background information to help you formulate a better email marketing deliverability strategy for your brand.

Definition of Email Marketing Deliverability

The percentage of your email messages delivered to your email subscribers’ inbox.

Email Marketing Deliverability Fundamentals

email marketing deliverability fundamentals source - http://blog.campaigner.com/2013/10/the-3-keys-to-great-email.html

  • Algorithmic Filters – If an incoming email contains similarities to an email already marked as junk, the incoming email will be marked as junk. These similarities include email sender, links, or content. Also, if an incoming email contains an URL that is blacklisted by an ISP’s (Internet Service Provider), the email will be marked as junk.
  • Spamtraps – An email address was set up but never receives email.  These email addresses are created by Spamtrappers and set up to catch spammers. Deploying secure opt-in technique prevents you from collecting spamtrap emails.
  • Blacklists – Reports IP and URL addresses that send unsolicited commercial email. ISPs use these reports to block emails sent from these IP and URL addresses.
  • Bounce Handling – Understand ISPs and your ESPs bounce codes to help you manage your email marketing efforts effectively.  Bounce codes are values assigned to email addresses that are not delivered, and different types of bounces are handled differently. Work with your ESP to better understand your bounces.
  • Authentication Protocols – Use protocols to help email receivers separate legitimate and non-legitimate messages. According to Marketo’s The Definitive Guide to Engaging Email Marketing, the most common email authentication protocols are DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), SPF (Sender Protection Framework), and SenderID.
  • Email Receiver and ISP Relations – Choose an ESP to help you manage your relationship with ISPs on your behalf and let them handle email messages that get marked as non-legitimate.

Now, let’s talk about best practices you can deploy to prevent getting labeled as a spammer.

10 Best Practices for Email Marketing Deliverability

Tips to precent SPAM complaints Source - https://econsultancy.com/blog/62852-five-tips-for-reducing-email-spam-complaints

  1. Include Unsubscribe Links in Email Messages – To comply with Anti-Spam regulation, you need to include an Unsubscribe link in all email marketing messages.
  2. Fulfill Your Promises – When you collect email addresses, you make a promise to provide them with timely, targeted, and relevant content that will meet their needs or solve their problems.
  3. Consistent From Email Addresses – By using the same from email address when you send email marketing messages, your email subscribers will recognize your emails and mark them as SPAM.
  4. Consistent Subject Line Wording and Tone – When the wording and tone of your email subject lines are consistent, your email subscribers will recognize your email messages and not mistake it for SPAM.
  5. Honor Your Email Subscribers Requests – Let your email subscribers manage their email subscriptions. If they only want to receive product informational emails, don’t send them promotional emails.
  6. Use Ethical Methods to Build Your Email Subscriber Lists – Verify all new email addresses through a double opt-in email address collection methodology, or you can send Welcome Emails to evaluate the validity of your email addresses.
  7. Regularly Remove Inactive Email Addresses – Review my 4 Ways to Reactivate Inactive Email Subscribers to Increase Deliverability blog post to learn about removing inactive email addresses.
  8. Choose a Reputable Email Service Provider (ESP) – Pick an ESP that have tools to handle email bounce codes, feedback loops, connection optimization, manage complaints, authenticate the quality of your IP addresses, and help you manage your relationship with ISPs.
  9. Manage Your Complaint Rate – If your ESP warns you about a lot of complaints take them seriously. According to Marketo’s Blog 7 Best Practices for Email Deliverability, set up an email address — abuse@your-domain.com — that your ESP can use to contact you with any complaints. Register that email address with www.abuse.net, an anti-spam advocacy group, to show that you take email abuse seriously.
  10. Be Proactive about Monitoring your Reputation – Work with your ESP to create relationships with ISPs to maintain a positive reputation and change whatever it takes to improve your reputation to get your email messages delivered to your email subscribers inboxes.  Both Return Path and SenderBase offer reputation monitoring services.

Call to Action to Improve your Email Marketing Deliverability

  • Develop your Email Marketing Deliverability Best Practices to increase your delivery rates and boost your email marketing results
  • Work with your ESP to deploy your Email Marketing Deliverability Best Practices
  • Visit Next Weeks Email Marketing Discussion: Always being Relevant with Your Email Subscribers
  • Visit the next Digital Marketer’s blog about Social Media including the latest news and updates from social media networks

Sources

Additional Email Marketing News and Resources

by

SEO Weekly Topic: How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Search Ranking

Use Social Media to Increase Your SEO Source: http://www.smartonlinepros.com/using-social-media-seo-campaign/
As Google tightens it’s reins on search and link building efforts, Digital Marketing Managers and SEO Manager are looking for alternative SEO tactics to increase it’s search ranking, you can let your Social Media do the SEO work for you.

Earlier today, Social Media Examiner published 18 Social Media SEO Resources to Improve Your Search Ranking by Patricia Redsicker.  This article has a lot of great tips on how to use Social Media to assist your SEO efforts that I cancelled my original idea for the Digital Marker’s SEO Weekly Discussion to share this article with you.

As you gear up your social media efforts to help your SEO strategies, just remember to participate in social media networks where your target audience is located. Don’t waste your time with social media networks where your target audience does not participate.

Having a hard time convincing your boss to try social media?

Discuss Stephanie Frasco‘s 6 Reasons Social Media Is Critical To Your SEO at Social Media Today

  • Link building was always about social proofing
  • Social media allows you to crowd source your link building
  • Being social is the fastest way to multiply your presence online
  • Social signals is a real think
  • Social links bring real traffic to your website
  • Google hates link building

Now, that you have convinced your boss to pursue social media to promote your brand, you can focus executing your social media efforts to boost your SEO with some best practices.

Patricia Redsicker Shares 5 Social Media Best Practices to Increase Your Search Ranking

  1. Publish High-Quality Content – As always content is key to drive your SEO and Social Media success. After producing content that meets your target audiences needs, you can post your content in a multiple areas of the web including your website, your social media networks, your newsletters, and your blog.
  2. Make Social Sharing Easy – Produce content that your target audience wants to share.  For example, I saw the 18 Social Media SEO Resources to Improve Your Search Ranking article, and I immediately wanted to share it with you.  As you produce content, you will have alter the content based on platform where the content is posted. Quick example, if you write a blog post, you can’t post the entire blog post on Twitter, but you can type the title of your blog post with a link to your blog.  With this example, you have basically the same content shared on two different platforms with the additional benefits of SEO finding the content.
  3. Boost Your Images and Profiles – We are a visual society, and visuals help us comprehend the written word.  Therefore, we need to use images.  First, save image files using your keywords. Next, when using images for your content, write an Alt Text tag that describes the image using your keywords for search engines.
  4. Don’t Forget Authorship Metadata (Google+) – Post your content to Google+ and indicate you are the author of your content.
  5. Measure Social Media Performance – As with SEO, it is critical to measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts. Develop KPI’s and dashboards to demonstrate how your social media not only increased traffic to your site, but you should create reports showing how your social media helped increase your SEO search rank. Then, you need to develop reports how your social media and SEO efforts increased revenue.

While this blog post shows the importance of using social media to increase your search rank, take your time to read 18 Social Media SEO Resources to Improve Your Search Ranking and devise a plan on how to effectively use your social media to increase your search ranking.

Additional Resources on How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Search Ranking:

In Other SEO News:

SEO, SEM, and PPC Resources

In SEM & PPC News

Link Building News and Resources

by

Getting your Social Media Audience to Share in this Weeks Social Media Discussion

Getting your Social Media Audience to Share Source:http://semomarketingsolutions.com/small-business-social-media-marketing/Participating effectively in social media accomplishes two goals for Digital Marketing Managers and Social Media Marketers:

  1. Connect with your target audience in the form of social media audience.
  2. Ability to extend your reach when your social media audience shares about your brand for their social media connections to see.

When you accomplish goal number 2, this is similar to creating word-of-mouth marketing.

Importance of Getting your Social Media Audience to Share

According to a Nielsen Survey, 33% of buyers believe what brands say about themselves. On the other hand, 92% of buyers believe what their peers have to say about a brand. Therefore, when your social media audience shares about your brand, their connections believe what is said.

Keeping this in mind, you want to create an environment on social media where your audience like, retweet, comment, and recommend your brand.

To do this

You need to provide your social media audience with compelling reasons to share your messages that is seamless. Tell your social media audience what is in it for them to like, retweet, comment on, or share their thoughts about your social media content.

5 Motivators for your Social Media Audience to Share

  1. Reputation
  2. Access to something exclusive
  3. Co-creation
  4. Competition and Winning
  5. Altruism

Source: Marketo’s The Definitive Guide to Social Sharing

Given these Statistics from a New York Times Study on Social Sharing Do this to spark a response in your social media audience?
75% say sharing helps them better comprehend the news they’re interested in Provide compelling content where a comment will help them understand your content
Before posting a link, 94% consider how helpful a link would be to others Make them feel like they are helping their connections if your brand’s link is in comments
68% share as an advertisement for themselves to teaches others about them Make your audience feel like they are teaching their connections about them when they like, retweet, or comment about your brand
73% say it helps find people with similar interests Give them an opportunity to connect with your followers because they have a common interest in your brand

Source of New York Times Study was included in Marketo’s Definitive Guide on Social Marketing

7 Tactics to Motivate Your Social Media Audience to Share

Sharing Content on social media networks Source:http://www.designzzz.com/free-wordpress-facebook-plugins/

  1. Social Sharing links/buttons before or after your content – ask for people to click the social sharing buttons because they may not see the buttons
  2. When someone downloads your content – provide a pop-up or some message where they can share what they just downloaded
  3. Listen and Respond – Listen to what your social media audience is saying. Respond with content that meets your audience needs.  This action, you will show your audience and their connection that you care.
  4. Refer-a-Friend – provide a compelling offer for your audience if they refer someone. These offers can also be extended to the friends.
  5. Social Sweepstakes – Create a content where entrants spread the word for you.
  6. Polls and Voting – Engage your audience to share their opinions through polls. Your audience votes will be seen by their connections.
  7. Flash Deals – Create a time-sensitive deals that are fun and have the potential to go viral and increase brand awareness.

Conclusion

Since peer recommendations influence how people view a brand, you want to get your social media audience to like and to share about your brand for their social media connections to see your content.  When those connections see your audience sharing about your brand, you are extending your reach.

To get your social media audience to like and share about your brand, you need to post content that will motivate your social media audience to share your content with their social media connections.

2 Great Articles from Social Media Examiner that Show you How to Get your Social Media Audience to Share your Content:

Sources for a Blog Post

Social Media Network News and Resources

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Google+

Pinterest

Instagram

by

4 Ways to Reactivate Inactive Email Subscribers to Increase Email Deliverability in Email Marketing Weekly Discussion

Inactive Email Subscribers and Active Email Subscribers Source: https://www.responsys.com/blogs/nsm/email-marketing/the-art-of-seduction-3-ways-to-re-engage-your-inactive-customers/To establish engagement with your email subscribers, Digital Marketing Managers and Email Marketing Managers need to maintain high quality email lists. By removing inactive email subscribers, you can maintain a high quality email list, increase deliverability, and establish engagement.

However, before removing inactive email subscribers, give them a chance to reactivate their email subscription, so they remain on your email subscription list.

To be considered an inactive email subscriber, an email subscriber has not opened, read, nor unsubscribed to your emails in a given period of time. Even if they opted-in or confirmed their email subscription, an email subscriber becomes inactive by not opening, reading, nor unsubscribing your emails.

According to Marketo’s Benchmark On Email Performance study, 26 to 50% of emails on marketers email subscription list are inactive.

Advantages to Removing Inactive Email Subscribers

Increase your email reputation with ISPs Source:www.cleansender.com

  • Higher deliverability
  • Lower SPAM complaint rate
  • Decreased costs
  • Increased reputation with ISPs
  • Increased engagement
  • Higher ROI

Currently, email marketers struggle to get their emails into their email subscribers’ inbox. Emails get delivered, but the emails go to to SPAM folders. This occurs when an organization has a low reputation with ISPs because they have a high amount of inactive email subscribers on their email subscriber list.

“In the end, removing inactive subscribers is often the action needed to get your mail back to the inbox and in front of your customers” according to Melinda Plemel of Return Path, an email service provider.

Given Melinda’s quote, it is worth the effort to remove your inactive email subscribers to increase your reputation with ISPs and increase the number of emails delivered to your email subscribers’ inbox.

Before removing inactive emails, give your inactive email subscribers a chance to reactivate their subscription.

4 Ways to Reactivate Inactive Email Subscribers

Example of a reactivate email subscribe effort to inactive email subscribers Source:http://openmoves.com/blog/email-reengagement/

  1. Series of Emails to Inactive Email Subscribers – Explain your email subscriber’s status and give them the option to activate their email subscription or Unsubscribe. You could give them free content or a discount on their next purchase. Make sure each email mentions the risk of being removed from your email subscription list.
  2. Mass Unsubscribe the Inactive Email Subscribers and Send a Final Email – Send one last email and give them one last chance to reactivate their email subscription.
  3. Perform a Telemarketing Campaign – Providing you have phone numbers for your inactive email subscribers, you may consider a more pro-active approach and call your inactive email subscribers.
  4. Deploy Direct Mail Effort – If you have mailing addresses for your inactive email subscribers, you could send them a direct mail piece.

You spend a lot of time and effort to build your email address list, and the idea of removing email addresses is scary and counter intuitive. However, by keeping inactive subscribers on your email list, it hinders your reputation with ISP’s, and ISP’s wont deliver your emails to your email subscribers’ inbox.

The idea of your emails NOT getting delivered to your email subscribers’ inbox is worse than removing inactive email addresses.  Therefore, take the time to identify and remove your inactive email subscribers.

Call to Action in Reactivating your Inactive Email Subscribers to Increase Email Deliverability

  • Identify your criteria of an inactive email subscriber
  • Determine the length of time to be considered an active vs. inactive email subscriber i.e. 2 months or 4 months
  • Consider any web activity by your inactive email subscribers
  • Create and deploy your reactivation campaign
  • Remove inactive email subscribers
  • Marketing Sherpa suggests this process occur every 4 to 6 months
  • Come back for next week’s Email Marketing weekly discussion on Deliverability
  • Come back for the next Digital Marketer Post about getting your target audience to share on your social media networks

Sources

Case Studies

Additional Resources and News Updates

Next Week’s Email Marketing Discussion: Deliverability Best Practices to Improve Reputation with ISP’s and Get Your Emails Delivered to Your Email Subscribers’ Inbox.

Next Digital Marketer Post: Social Media – How to get your target audience to share with you on social media networks?

by

How to Write Meta Descriptions that Standout and Increase your Click Through Rates from Search Engine Result Pages in this Week’s SEO Update

Meta Tag Description Source: http://www.mysecondmillion.com/meta-tags-title-tags-meta-descriptions/Your keyword strategies and SEO tactics have landed your website on page 1 of a search engine result page (SERP), but now, you need to convince people, searchers, to click the link to your website versus another link. A well written meta description about the content on your website can help you stand out from other websites on a SERP page.

Is the likelihood of your competitor landing on the same SERP page as you high?

If yes, you can use Meta Descriptions to persuade searchers and make your website seem more appealing than your competitors.

What is a Meta Description?

The text below a webpage link on a SERP is a meta description about the content on the webpage. The meta description can lure searchers to click through to your website instead of another website.

Think of a Meta Description as a short sales pitch for your webpage.  This is an opportunity to engage searchers before they get to your website.

An Example of How Meta Descriptions Appear on a Google Search Engine Result Page:
Example of a Meta Description on a Google Search Engine Results Page Source: http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/website-design/meta-tags-explained/adding-a-meta-description-tag

Personally, when I complete a web search, I always read the meta descriptions to find out which website can meet my informational needs. Reading the meta descriptions can be a time saver, so I try to find the meta description for the best website to satisfy my search query. If I personally use meta descriptions to find the best website to click through to, I wonder how many other searchers might read meta descriptions as well.

A snapshot of the HTML Code to Help You Set Up Your Meta Tag Descriptions:
HTML code for Meta Description Tags Source: http://www.mycomputerforum.com/tutorials/meta_tags_seo.html

How to Write Meta Descriptions that Standout?

Components to set up effective meta tag descriptions that increase click through rates Source:http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/complete-guide-meta-tags/

  1. Use Action-Oriented Language – use action words to tell readers what they will see if they click.
  2. Include a Solution or Benefit – give a convincing preview of how your content will satisfy the searchers needs.
  3. Length should be under 150 characters – the date when the content was posted could be included in the meta description, so you want to convince searchers to click through to your website in 130 characters or less. Best to be on the safe side.
  4. Be Honest – make sure your content on your webpage can deliver what your meta descriptions says it will deliver. This is your chance for searchers to build trust in your website. Don’t waste this chance.
  5. Be Relevant and Specific with Descriptive Words
  6. Meta Description should Accurately Describe the Content on Your Webpage, so expectations are met, and bounce rates are decreased.

Avoid these Meta Description Pitfalls

  • No Meta Description – Google will use text from somewhere on the page that matches the searchers’ query, and this text may not convince users to click through to your website.
  • Keyword Stuffing – Only using keywords may not properly describe the content on your webpage, and you do not want to mislead searchers and risk them never clicking through to your website in the future.
  • Bounce Rate – To avoid searchers from clicking the back button when they click through to your site, make sure the sales pitch in your meta description will be fulfilled by the content on your webpage.  Be aware that a high bounce rate may hinder your SEO and reduce your ranking.

Finally, don’t you hate it when Wikipedia outranks you on your keywords?

Use your Meta Descriptions to stand out and lure searchers to click through to your website instead of clicking to Wikipedia.

Have fun creating Meta Descriptions for your website and come back to learn more SEO tips and tools to help drive traffic to your websites from search engines and reach your digital marketing objectives.

Sources

Additional SEO News and Resources

by

29 Ways to Collect Email Addresses to Build Your Email Marketing List in this Weeks Email Marketing Update

collecting email addresses to build your email marketing list Source: http://jimijones.com/blogging/email-list-building-strategies/

Last week’s email marketing update talked about establishing a relationship with your email subscribers from the moment they give you their email address.  Today, we will talk about all the different ways to collect email addresses to build your email marketing list.

As a Digital Marketing Manager, one of your email marketing objectives is to increase your email marketing list with email addresses from your target audience.  There are many different tactics to obtain email addresses, and you want to use tactics that will attract your target audience.  Of the different methods that are available to obtain new email addresses, pick the ones that are relevant for your brand and your target audience.

77% of marketers ask for email addresses on their website according to Marketing Sherpa’s 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report.

Extremely Effective Method to Collect Email Addresses on your Website

My favorite way to collect email addresses on a website is to use a floater.  The image below is an example.

Example of Floater to obtain an email addresses From Mequoda Source:http://www.mequoda.com/articles/email-marketing/using-floater-order-forms-to-increase-landing-page-conversion-rates/

  • Looks like a pop-up. However, the floater does not function like a pop-up.
  • Floaters have seen a 20-50% lift in website conversions according to Mequoda
  • Floaters briefly interrupt the user experience, and the user can easily close out of the floater without affecting their experience on your website.
  • Benefit of a floater is that it can appear on any web page where a user enters your website
  • Finally, you can configure the floater to only appear on the user’s first visit to your site.
  • For more information about the floater please refer to Mequoda’s Use Website Floaters to Increase Email Conversion Rates.

Since the user can easily click out of the floater without providing their email address, you should provide additional methods on your website to collect email addresses. Depending on the layout of your website, find the best place where you can obtain the highest number of email addresses.

Different areas on a webpage to collect email addresses:

  • Sidebar
  • Header
  • Footer
  • Middle of Page
  • Bottom of Content
  • Welcome Gate – Instead of a floater, a welcome gate redirects visitors to a landing page before visitors enter your website.

Before moving on to other email address collection methods, one tip:

Find the best balance in placing the right number email address collection options on your website that will not hinder your target audience’s experience on your website.

As a Digital Marketing Manager or an Email Marketing Manager, you should go through all the different options of collecting email addresses and evaluate which options work best for you. It is important to maximize the number of ways to collect email addresses to help you reach your email marketing objectives.

29 Ways to Collect Email Addresses to Build Your Email Marketing List

Collect email address to build your email marketing list Source: http://www.businessonline2u.com/business-information/start-an-informational-product-business-%E2%80%94-step-by-step-guide

  1. Website registration page
  2. Social Media sharing buttons in email
  3. Registration during purchase
  4. Online events (webinars, podcasts, webcasts, virtual tradeshows)
  5. Facebook registration page
  6. Email to a friend for content on your website
  7. Paid search
  8. Blog registration pages
  9. Co-Registration programs
  10. When someone comments on your content
  11. When someone downloads content from your website
  12. When someone sends you a message on your contact us page
  13. Ask your current customers
  14. Via QR codes
  15. Using Twitter’s lead gen cards
  16. Place a link to your website registration page in your Social Media updates
  17. Forward to a friend link in your promotional emails
  18. When someone makes a purchase in your brick and motor store
  19. At the end of an online survey
  20. During tradeshows
  21. During presentations
  22. During offline events
  23. Put an offer on the back of your business cards
  24. Put a link to your website registration page in the signature of your emails
  25. Giveaways (See infographic under the additional resources for ideas)
  26. Incentivize your employees to collect email addresses during sales calls
  27. Ask Trade Associations or local Chamber of Commerce for space on their websites to promote your website registration
  28. Send a post card to your mailing list with a link to your website registration page
  29. Leave postage paid email sign-up cards behind when you visit clients

As you can see, there a lot of ways to collect email addresses to build your email marketing list. Not all of these options will be applicable to your brand, but it is worth taking the time to investigate these different options. Use email address collection methods that make sense for you, your brand, and your target audience.

Happy Email Address Collecting

Sources

Additional Resources

Next weeks Email Update: Maintaining a High Quality Email List

Learn More about Digital Marketing Manager, Cindy Plough