marketing-blog

Would a more sociable website bring you more customers?

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:31:00 GMT

Would a more sociable website draw more attention to customers and consumers?

Plug-ins are embeddable social features that can be integrated in your site with a line of HTML. Because they are hosted by Facebook, the plugins are personalized for all users who are currently logged into Facebook, even if they are visiting your site for the first time. The most important Social Plugin is the Like Button, (Facebook) which enables users to share your page with their friends with one click. You can add a Like button to any page with an iframe tag: Once you have included the Like Button into your site, you can use other Social Plugins to turn those user interactions into more engaging experiences throughout your site. You can use the Activity Feed Plugin to show users a stream of the recent likes and comments from their friends on your site. You can use the Recommendations Plugin to show personalized page recommendations to your users based on the likes and comments across your entire site. Facebook dropped the news about their “Open Graph” or new Facebook Platform that brings content into Facebook – and of course expands Facebook’s web reach out to a more granular level. Since the announcement, there have been two questions asked quite frequently:

1: Should I add social media widgets and plugins to my site? Unless you have content that isn’t interesting, isn’t social in nature or you having privacy concerns, adding this new functionality to your original content is recommended.

However, it isn’t recommended to go buck wild putting this functionality on every page, just your content that would interest people. Should it be on your Contact Us Page? No.

2. Should it be on your weekly unique and creative blog posts? Yes. The answer to question 2 isn’t quite cut and dry, so this post will serve as an à la carte menu on the various different ways to implement the Facebook “Like” code onto your individual pages/posts.

Facebook Like Button

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:23:00 GMT

April 21 2011, celebrated Facebook's first birthday of the like button. There are about 3.5 million websites using Facebook's like button and other applications.

An average of 10,000 websites a day in the past year have reaped the benefits of Facebook and there tools. More than 250 million people engage with Facebook on external websites through the like button or other social equipment. The Facebook like button doesn’t promise to lead more sale transaction or bring in more revenue. If the like button is everywhere then a like may actually yield very little impact on a buying decision. Therefore, people are not really influenced by some by someone else clicking the Facebook like button. It's argued that people who arrive on the website of retailers and media sites from Facebook are more deeply engaged than those who arrived to the website through other sources. When someone on Facebook clicks the like button to your page, it is shown in their new feeds. Their friends can see the pages that they like and proceed to “like” you as well. Therefore, your customer base is growing with just a click once you have installed and display the like button on your site, visitors can automatically click it and Facebook automatically updates their Facebook profile, and they begin to follow you without even having to waste time logging in to find you.

What Exactly Is Web Hosting Anyway?

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:16:00 GMT

If you have a website you are aware of the term “web hosting” but what does that mean exactly to you and your business? We constantly meet people who aren't even aware who hosts their website or what their hosting platform is doing for them, more importantly, NOT doing for their business.

Simply put web hosting is a service that allows individuals and businesses to make their website accessible on the web. In today’s world ,having a strong web presence to enable users to interact with your company via the web is a necessity.

Each website has it's own personality and purpose, web hoisting requirements are no different and you need to do your homework and find out which type of web hosting service is best suited to meet your needs. Knowing what you need in advance of looking for the perfect host is important.

There are some common features that all types of web hosting share, such as the ability to access your information from anywhere in the world using an Internet connection. It's very important to take the time to look at your specific needs, budget, and your options to choose the web hosting company that makes sense for your business and situation. You need to carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each variety of web hosting and select for yourself the one that best meets your needs. There is a lot of information available and can be a little overwhelming at first but taking the time to sort through it all will save you time and money in the long run.

Monitor Your Advertising Results With Call Tracking

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:38:00 GMT

In 2010, due to the economy, more businesses were smarter about where they were spending their marketing dollars. To assist in this, more and more companies have turned to using call tracking.

With call tracking, companies can use 800 and local numbers to monitor advertising results. This includes call recording, call reporting and miss call notifications. These tools help companies manage effectively. By recording calls, they can hear what questions are being asked by potential customers and then can give their employees the best information to answer these questions. Call reporting shows them where their calls are coming from and where they are not. This helps to cut advertising that is not working and spend more on ads that do work. Call tracking is an inexpensive tool that you too can use to monitor your advertising so that you can use your marketing dollars in the most efficient way.

Not All Hosting is Created Equal

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:35:00 GMT

It's no secret that in today's fast-paced world people are constantly looking for the next generation of tools and services that will take their business to the next level. As technology advances so should your business and that's why it's vital to have a well-built, easy to use website that will not only engage your customers but keep them coming back. So the obvious question is “how do I get a killer website that will accomplish these goals?”

The answer is simple, it all starts with hosting.

Having a cumbersome, out-of-date hosting platform is like going grocery shopping without a cart. Imagine trying to fit a weeks worth of groceries in your arms, you could balance everything for a few aisles but it would soon get too much to manage. The same can be said about web hosting, there are so many elements and pieces that are integrated into a website why not have all of these things placed neatly in one cart where you can access vital information, send blog posts, email blasts and much more all in one place? It's like one-stop shopping for your website.

We are very proud to now offer the next generation of web hosting, our system comes with all of the built-in goodies that put YOU in the drivers seat of YOUR website. You call the shots, why pay a website designer or programmer every time you need something changed or updated on your site? (I liken it to having to pay someone to drive your own car!)

Yes, there are several companies that offer web hosting at bargain basement prices but the old saying is true, you really do get what you pay for!

Google Plus 1 SEO Benefits

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:17:00 GMT

You probably by now have heard the term "+ one" or "Google + 1" lately, this used to mean you are attending an event and have a guest that remains nameless or is unimportant. Google is redefining the meaning of "plus one" as plus one now means this website, page, article, information is important. It's like a recommendation or personal note from a friend that says "Hey check this out." /p>

Plus one is Google's answer to the "Like" button or Twitter's "Follow" button and it will basically count as an ‘up’ vote when somebody clicks the +1 google icon next to a search result or in GMail. But what does the Google +1 do to SEO, and how is it advised to be used in SEO campaigns?

The one thing we do know for sure is that the results from Google +1 are being used directly in the Google search results algorithm. But how we use this information is something we are still learning. Fortunately we can make a few simple assumptions to help use Google +1 effectively right now.

To start with, while we do not currently know what Google’s anti-spam measures are for Google +1, it is probably safe to assume they have them in place. So my first piece of advice would be Do Not Spam. Maybe +1 a few of your posts, but do not go overboard, let these build naturally. If you have a community, even a small one, you can encourage them to +1 your post.

Google released the code for Google +1 buttons on websites yesterday. Get these installed by clicking here for the Google + 1 Code of This will allow you to garner +1 votes much more quickly. It will also make it much more likely that organic search visitors will vote up your site.

Google +1 uses a Google account, you are much more likely to get +1 votes than Stumbles, Diggs, Spinns, or any of the other multitude of bookmarking services out there. Unlike many of these cheap social bookmarking tools you are also actually getting a direct SEO benefit.

When you +1 something it will appear to your friends underneath search results, so build up those Google Contacts, it means that more people are more likely to find what you +1. Watch this video to understand the plus one from a user perspective.

An exciting note is that the Google +1 is very likely to become a permanent addition to Google Adwords advertisements, so your friends can see which advertised sites you have liked. It means that an effective campaign promoting a site could benefit it’s Adwords campaign as well.

If you see the value of Google + 1 but don't have any idea how to execute it or where to start then give us a call at 866-589-9201 and we can either help you out or put you on the right path. Thanks for reading now + 1 this article by clicking the icon below.

HTML vs. Plain Text email

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 02:01:00 GMT

When you create an email campaign you can choose to send it in either HTML or Text format. HTML emails are aesthetically much more pleasing. They are easier to read and can include images. They have a higher impact and can be much more effective in delivering your messages to your customers. Only HTML emails can be reported on. Statistics such as who opened your email and which links they clicked on only pertain to HTML email campaigns. These statistics are not available if you send your email in Text format. Keep in mind unsubscribe and bounced reporting is available for both HTML and Text emails.

So why would you decide on Text formatted emails if HTML formatted emails are so much more powerful? Well there are a number of reasons why you would opt for a Text formatted email. Firstly not all your recipient's email clients support HTML emails. Many mobile email clients do not support HTML formatted emails. When you send HTML emails via our system we automatically include a Text version. This means if a recipient doesn't support HTML then they will automatically be shown the Text version.

Plain Text

Reasons to Use Plain Text

Displays Consistently Across Email Clients
Always Necessary for All Messages (whether you use HTML or not)
Looks More Like a Personal Email Message

Reasons Not to Use Plain Text

Can’t use Colors or Graphics
Can’t turn words like “Click Here” into Links – must type out URL
Harder to Break Up Into Easy-to-Scan/Read Sections
Can’t Use Multiple-Column Formats Easily

HTML

Reasons to Use HTML

Can Track Subscriber Opens and Actions. (you can even track subscriber’s purchases by email opened)
Can Make Text Links Clickable
Can Use Images and Colors – Good Branding Opportunities! (good looking emails get passed on to others)
Easy to Break Up Content into Digestible Bits (using columns, headers)

Reasons Not to Use HTML

More work than text only emails.
Images are often blocked and sent to junk or marked as span.
Looks less like a one-to-one message. (less personal)

HTML formatted emails are often mistakenly considered to be spam. It's not unusual for up to 20% of your recipients anti-spam software to consider your email newsletter to be spam and deliver it to the spam folder where the recipient is unlikely to ever see it. You can ask your recipients to add the email address you use for broadcasting to their white list (trusted list) but not all your recipients will do this or most likely know how to do this.

SUMMARY

Text is cleaner and looks more like emails that we send to each other everyday. But HTML gets more attention. HTML doesn’t always load correctly but you can use ALT text to get your point across to enable images to display or describe the images and HTML doesn’t always get through the spam and junk mail filters.

The dilemma between choosing an HTML or Text only formatted email affects anyone familiar with email marketing. Experimenting and reviewing your bounced reports is an effective way to find out how many of your emails are getting through and how many are considered to be spam.

Now, The Million Dollar Question…

Is it better to reach more subscribers with a text only based message or possibly reach less people with a more powerful message using HTML? Discuss amongst yourselves…

Email marketing the TNTMD way

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:34:00 GMT

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective and powerful marketing tools available today, and one that your company can use to build stronger relationships with your customers. Email marketing allows you to cultivate loyalty in a customer base, providing them with a great value proposition for your products and services - increasing traffic to your website and strengthening sales potential.

Unlike most email marketing solutions that enable you to send one-off email newsletters to your customer base, this solution allows you to do much more simply because of the overall product offering. The possibilities are greater and can have a significant impact on your bottom-line. Right now one-off email newsletters campaigns would make up the bulk of your email marketing activities. Ongoing loyalty-based campaigns are another form of email marketing ignored by most players. These types of campaigns will not only compliment one-off email broadcasts but put a very different slant on how you can use email marketing to build relationships that translate into dollars for your business.

Here are some of the key features with our web platform that will help you outperform your competitors:

An easy-to-use wizard for creating email marketing campaigns
100's of templates to use for creating stunning email newsletters
Extensive reporting to measure effectiveness, including open rate, links clicked and bounced emails
Ability to customize your newsletter subscription forms
Better spam prevention and control
Choice of both one-off campaigns and ongoing loyalty-based campaigns
Ability to include and subscribe customers to affiliate programs within campaigns
Double opt-in mechanism for customer subscriptions

Campaigns vs. Lists

Before you embark upon email marketing it's important to understand some of the terminology used in this area. A List is simply any group of your customers that you want to send an email newsletter to. A Campaign on the other hand is an email newsletter which has been scheduled or has already been sent to this List of recipients. Every time you undertake a campaign you can use any list which signifies the recipients who will receive your email newsletter campaign.

Getting Started

Before you create an email marketing campaign you have to choose the type of campaign you want to send. If you are new to email marketing then more than likely you will want to send an email to a number of your customers and measure its effectiveness. When we talk about "measuring effectiveness" we are referring to how successful your newsletter was as far as how many recipients received and read it. Every time you send out an email newsletter, the system will automatically measure who opened your email, which links within the email they selected and how many recipients unsubscribed from your newsletter. There are also many other useful reports that will help you measure the success of your campaigns.

There are 3 main parts to every email newsletter campaign:

Choosing the type of campaign
Writing the content of your newsletter
Choosing the recipients of your newsletter

One-off vs. loyalty-based campaigns

One-off campaigns are the most popular forms of email marketing. A one-off campaign is an email newsletter that is sent to a group of your customers at some date in the future. For example you might write a newsletter called "April Newsletter" and send it to your customer database. This is a one-off newsletter. Of course you may continue on and send another newsletter in May called "May Newsletter" but again, this is a one-off newsletter.

If you are new to email marketing then you should start with a one-off campaign, then when you are ready you should also explore loyalty-based campaigns.

Understanding Loyalty-based campaigns

Loyalty-based campaigns automate communication to a group of your customers on a one-by-one basis. There are many types of loyalty-based campaigns.

To give you a better understanding here is an example of a birthday loyalty campaign. Imagine you are a restaurant, a hairdresser, a massage parlor or any other type of business which regularly deals with customers.

If you are in a position to collect your customer's date of birth or even just their day and month of birth, then you can setup birthday loyalty-based campaigns that automate communication to your customers on a one-by-one basis.

Once you create one of these campaigns and choose the list of recipients, as each customer's birthday month is reached a customized email is sent to that recipient alone. For example you can send an email wishing them happy birthday and include a sweetener such as a 20% discount or a 2-for-1 voucher if they purchased with you in the month of their birthday. This process continues around the clock and for every single customer in your recipients list. You needn't remember when customer birthdays are but you can rest assured that you are wishing them happy birthday and keeping them up to date with your latest products and offers.

Sending a one-off campaign

Creating a one-off campaign is a simple and quick process. You need to have covered off 3 essential items.

1.The date to send the campaign 2.The content of your campaign 3.The recipients of your campaign.

Here's the complete range of loyalty-based campaigns that you can setup through our email marketing service.

Birthday
Campaign Join
Anniversary 1 e.g. next car service
Anniversary 2 e.g. next dentist appointment
Anniversary 3 e.g. next haircut invitation
Anniversary 4 e.g. next restaurant invitation
Anniversary 5 e.g. next holiday purchase invitation

Birthday Campaigns

Are used as in the example earlier use them to get maximum value out a simple happy birthday message and drive them back to your business.

Email Series

Imagine if you write a newsletter which has 8-issues. In a one-off campaign you would have to set the date at which each issue is sent out to a list of recipients. One-off campaigns are great until you acquire a new customer that joins when you are already up to issue 7 that customer has missed out on issues 1-6!

Email Series campaigns allow you to automate the sending of newsletters to recipients as and when they are subscribed to a list.

For example if you setup a campaign of this type with 0 day, 7 day and 14 day delivery days then when person 1 joins, they will receive issue one straight away. Issue 2 will be sent 7 days after they subscribe and issue 3 will be sent 14 days after this person first subscribed. But when person 2 comes along a month later and subscribes to a list via your website they will receive the same issues at the same intervals relative to their subscription date. This process is repeated for every person that subscribes to the list attached to these campaigns.

Anniversary

The system allows for 5 anniversary based campaigns. These are all of the same type but you can use each anniversary date for a different purpose. You can set up to 5 anniversary dates for each customer. To do so view a customer's record in "Customers" section and click on the "Anniversary" tab.

Here are some examples on how you can use anniversary based campaigns within your business.

A travel agent could update the Anniversary 1 date with a date 12 months from the date of a customers travel package purchase. Now you would setup a campaign of Anniversary 1 type which sends a reminder to your customer that it's been 12-months since their last travels and that its time for another holiday!
As a mechanic you could service a customers car and then tell the customer that their next service is due in 6-months. You update the customer's record and enter a date 6-months from now for Anniversary 2. Your campaign will automatically notify any customer when their next car service becomes due.

Every business can and should take advantage of anniversary based campaigns. These types of campaigns can save you a significant amount of time while still delivering significant benefits and driving repeat business for your business.

Setting up Loyalty-based campaigns

Loyalty-based campaigns are created just like one-off campaigns - with one major exception. When you create a one-off campaign you designate the date at which it's sent out to your recipients. With loyalty-based campaign you don't set a date for delivery as each loyalty-based campaign is sent to customers based on some date relevant to that customer.

You therefore set Delivery Days. For example a Delivery Day of 0 for birthday campaigns means when a customer birthday is reached, on the day of the birthday your campaign will be sent to them.

For a birthday campaign you may want to set a Delivery Day of -30 which means 30-days before a customer's birthday your communication is sent out. You may also want to have another campaign with a Delivery Day of 0 which wishes a customer happy birthday on the day of their birthday.

A positive Delivery Day such as 5 means your campaign is sent out 5 days after the relevant date.

Lets examine how Delivery Days work with Anniversary-based campaigns. Imagine you update the Anniversary 1 date for a customer for 12-months from now. When you setup a campaign of this type with a Delivery Day of 0, when this future date for this customer is reached your campaign is sent to this customer. However if you had set the Delivery Day to 5, then the customer would have only received your campaign 5 days after this future date was reached.

For Campaign Join campaigns, you would create a series of newsletters by creating follow ups to the first email. This is done by right-clicking on the campaign you wish to copy, then changing the Delivery Day (and other details) accordingly. A typical campaign join series might go out at Delivery Days 0, 7, 14, 21, 28 and so on.

To complete the creation of your loyalty-based campaigns you need to finalize your content and choose the recipients.

As you can see our web platform makes the email marketing process very simple effective and might I say fun?

If however, you just want to leave it to the professionals then we would be happy to discuss a marketing and execution strategy. You can reach TNT Marketing and Design at 866-589-9201.

Our next blog is going to be discussing HTML vs. Plain Text and SPAM Issues to avoid…stay tuned!

Tips to Writing a Successful Email Newsletter

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 23:57:00 GMT

Newsletter Writing Guidelines

There are two main concepts you need to worry about when writing a newsletter. The first is the content (what your newsletter is about) and the second is the structure (how your newsletter was coded in HTML). We will give you some hints on both concepts in this article.

OUR WEB PLATFORM MAKES EVERYTHING DISCUSSED BELOW IN THIS ARTICLE A BREEZE.

We first cover the structural (coding) guidelines and then we'll cover the content.

Newsletter coding guidelines

When coding a newsletter you have to make sure that the HTML code you produce will be compatible with majority of the email clients your customers are using. These are, MS Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and the list goes on.

So here are some quick tips:

1. Use tables for the layout instead of divs - email clients work better with tables. Some programs such as MS Outlook 2007 do not support float.

2. Use inline CSS - Try not to link to external stylesheets or embed your styles inside the head, because some email clients do not support this. Gmail and Outlook 2007 pretty much ignore anything above the body tag.

3. Test, test ,test - you should test with multiple email accounts and multiple email clients.

Newsletter content guidelines

However, email newsletters aren't just printed newsletters delivered electronically. They must be written using a different style for a unique reading environment. These top 10 points will help you publish a successful and valuable email newsletter.

1. Remember that your reader is reading light, not matter (ink). When reading light we blink less often and we're unable to adjust text size by moving the document closer or farther from our eyes. This causes more eyestrain than reading the printed page.

2. Remember that because of this potential eyestrain, your reader will more likely scan a page, looking for key words or phrases to get the information he/she needs without reading every word. A Sun Microsystems study determined that 79 percent of people who visit Web pages, for example, don't read them...they scan them.

3. Remember that you only have a few seconds to capture your reader's attention. Wow your reader with valuable information that doesn't have a lot of introductory material.

4. Write short. Short means about 50 percent less than you write for a printed newsletter. Each article should be about two page-downs at the most with a maximum sentence length of 15 to 20 words, maximum paragraph length of five sentences, and a maximum article length of four paragraphs. Remember...these are maximums!

5. Remember to write in a conversational tone. Newsletters are written with "friendly authority". Let your personality show through and readers will more likely invest their time reading what you have to say.

6. Remember to use lots of bullet points and numbered lists. Lists are easy to scan and they help the reader absorb each item one at a time.

7. Remember to limit each article to a single concept. Add resources such as web sites where longer articles or more information can be found.

8. Remember that email newsletters are easily forwarded. Never write anything that you wouldn't want the whole world (including your competition) to read.

9. Remember that email newsletters only cost you your time. Send your newsletter out consistently and reap the marketing rewards of regular contact. Email newsletters are one of today's most economical and successful marketing tools. Use it!

10. Remember that newsletters are considered a news source. Unlike other direct mail pieces, newsletters enjoy the same status as newspapers and other news media. Respect this privilege. Be sure your information is accurate and newsworthy. Enjoy the marketing advantage while maintaining integrity to your readers.

Welcome to our Marketing Blog!

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:29:00 GMT

This is our first blog post on our web design and web development site. We also have a traditional media website.

Feel free to grab a cup of tea and a cookie, put your feet up and take a look around.

This blog is for small businesses with big dreams. We will be discussing advertising, marketing, sales, sales training, customer service, PR, and workplace communication. All of the building blocks needed for a strong foundation to grow your business and thrive.

I hope you enjoy it and feel free to let us know what you think!

We hope to be starting a design blog soon. Stay tuned for that.