Posted on 14th June 2010 by Susan Venancio in Business Tips |email marketing
advertising, Business Growth, Business Tips, customer service, email, email marketing, internet revenue, marketing strategy
An email newsletter, when put together effectively, can be a fantastic avenue to generate traffic to your website and increase your sales revenues. Keeping the format clean and sharp looking with useful engaging articles and irresistible promotional special offers will give your subscriber a reason to open and read more.
Here are some helpful tips to consider as you create your newsletter:
- Make it simple, easy to read, and quickly scan-able with easy navigation. Format with a 12 pt. size font (I like Arial typestyle) in dark font color on a light background, publish only 3-5 articles, using a few compelling pictures and add a clickable table of contents with article titles at the top. For articles that have over 200-300 words, add a “read more” link to take your reader to your website for the full details.
- Set your standards. Keeping the same colors, article and promotional placement, and number of articles; sets a predictable standard that customers love.
- Establish a publishing schedule. Decide and commit to sending your newsletter at regular intervals. For example, if you were to publish a monthly newsletter, email it on the first Monday of each month. This too, helps establish a predictable standard that customers love.
- Format for the preview pane. Most people view their emails through the preview pane, so format the top 200-300 pixels with the most engaging and irresistible material.
- The 80/20 content rule. 80% of the newsletter content should be engagingly useful tip oriented articles and 20% promotional sales content.
- Subscriber access on the homepage. Put a subscribe box at the top of the homepage, only asking for the subscriber’s email address. Give the subscriber an opportunity to view current and previous issues. Also, offer a share button. And make your privacy policy easily accessible.
- Check it out. Send your newsletter to email clients, such as, Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail to ensure quality viewing results in these various environments.
- Measure the results. Analyze what works and what does not work after each newsletter. Find out the: delivery rate, open rate, click-through rate, sales rate and sign-up growth rate.
An email newsletter is another opportunity to showcase your company’s personality. Also use your target audience, competition and newsletters you receive to help guide you towards writing and designing a great newsletter. If you are looking for material inspiration to cover in your newsletter try: a main editorial, “From the President” article, testimonials, special featured products/services, upcoming events, promotions, coupon, other industry expert interviews with tips/best practices, FAQ section where you answer customer submitted questions, customer feedback, surveys, or enter a contest.
I hope these tips help you write and design an irresistible newsletter. Get creative and have fun!
Cheers!
Posted on 7th June 2010 by Susan Venancio in Business Tips |Marketing |Web Design
Business Growth, Business Tips, customer service, ideas, internet revenue, marketing strategy, mobile apps, mobile device, mobile website, seo, web design, website
It is estimated that there are more than 175,000 mobile apps and over 326,000 mobile websites available for those with smart mobile devices in their pocket. Users have all types of mobile applications available: games, utilities, social networking, news, weather, reference, travel, productivity tools and more. Users have come to expect having information available mobile style. And having information available mobile style is only expected to increase.
It is hard to deny, mobility increases the workforces’ productivity and it takes your business to the next level. However, for a business, weighing the options to go mobile app &/or mobile website is a big deal that needs careful consideration. Here are some major points to consider:
Mobile App
- Is developed for a specific mobile device, download and installation required.
- Updates, download and installation required.
- Development required for each mobile device platform.
- Your business will need a very large budget with a well-defined strategy to get top rankings to be found with the search engines.
- App store approvals may be required.
- Ability to use all GPS, camera, voice, RFID, address book, calendar capabilities.
- There can be publishing/certifications fees.
- Costs more to develop/maintain. Consider your businesses updates, plus updates as devices change.
- Sales revenues are shared with app store.
- User has full control and is seamlessly integrated with the mobile device.
Mobile Website
- Is developed specifically for mobile devices, no downloads or installation required.
- Updates automatically available.
- Runs on all web enabled mobile devices.
- A good SEO marketing strategy will increase your traffic volume.
- Anyone can access your mobile website.
- For security and privacy concerns access to address books/calendars are limited.
- No publishing/certification fees.
- Costs less to develop/maintain. Your developer has complete access for updates when requested.
- Sales revenues are the businesses.
- User experience depends on your mobile website design.
Understanding the who, what, and where of your user base will also be of great benefit to you. Even though mobile apps are all the rage in popularity and lots of fun, look at all your options to pick the best solution for your business to go mobile style.
Please choose your mobile style wisely. And remember to be a responsible mobile device user.
Cheers!
Posted on 24th February 2010 by Susan Venancio in Business Tips |eCommerce |web design
customer, eCommerce, internet revenue, internet sales, online experience
Do you rely on internet sales revenue? If yes, your customers want their online experience to be simple and fast. There are straightforward solutions to common issues that can be implemented to make your site more effective and bring in more revenue.
In the eyes and clicks of your customer, take a look at these questions:
- Do you have unique title page names? No? You need to modify each page. The words that you use on each page are important and need to be different to be noticed by search engines.
- Are your product descriptions short and sweet? No? Your customers need to see not read what your product does. It is worth your time to make revisions.
- Are your online forms short? No? Your contact form should only ask for what you really need.
- Does your web site load quickly? No? Then place all non-important information at the bottom of the page and make sure your images are as small as possible.
- Is your shopping cart and payment process simple to use? No? Your customers want their experience to be easy; easy to use, easy to add products and easy to buy. Your purchase process needs to be a seamless professional and trust worthy experience for this to happen.
Your online customers will appreciate these simple, yet effective changes. The simple seamless, quick and easy customer experience is a happy customer. A happy customer means repeat business. That’s good right?!?
