Email Marketing For Your Business

Ever considered email marketing for your business or organization? Many of people have, but just haven’t pursued it. Maybe that’s because they don’t have a list of email addresses to market to yet, or maybe they think it’s expensive, or that people will delete their emails.

If you’re in business during the 21st century, email marketing can be a very beneficial marketing tool for you. This applies to business-to-business corporations, family owned shops, or major service providers. If done correctly, email marketing can help you turn uninterested individual into prospects, turn prospects into customers, and first-time customers into repeat customers!

First of all, what comes to mind when you see the term “email marketing”? For the purpose of this article, we’ll define it as sending newsletters out via email, to a list of subscribers. We prefer to look at it as an opt-in list, whether the subscriber purchased from you previously, signed up for your newsletter on your website or in your store, etc. This helps to ensure the recipients of your email are interested in your news for some particular reason.

With competitive marketing, other companies are doing anything they can to get business in, which is pulling business away from you. If you are regularly placing your brand in front of your prospect or customer, you have a better chance of having a considerable relationship with that individual which improves your chances of beating the competition even if your price is higher. People like to buy from people they trust and have a relationship with. If you keep in touch with your subscriber list regularly, you will be the first that comes to mind when they need your product or service.

Providing helpful tips, coupons, or industry information to them through e-newsletters is a great way to encourage them to stay on your email list and read your newsletter each time they receive it. You have a higher chance at driving traffic to your website, and striking interest for new products you may offer. Providing industry-related news or tips will show that you are keeping up with the changes in your industry and that you are a good resource for information. Providing discounts or coupons will encourage a call to action. If you own a retail store and send out newsletters with a discount for the next week, you will probably see more customers in your store to take advantage of the offer than if you didn’t provide this perk.

Many email marketing programs provide click-through tracking so that you can see what is productive, how many of your subscribers are opening your newsletter, and how many are unsubscribing because of a loss of interest. This information is readily available in real-time tracking.

You probably know that most every business has a website, but not everyone is using effective email marketing techniques. Staying in front of your customers and prospects through email newsletters will help you keep your market share, and hopefully grow it too! Staying in front of your customers monthly, weekly, or however often works for your business, is very beneficial over time. The relationship that email marketing builds between your company and your customer is one that will prove valuable as compared to impersonal and traditional advertising.

In Honor of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, we wanted to suggest some eco-friendly marketing concepts that you may or may not have considered for your company.

Many companies around the world are implementing environmentally-friendly business practices for several different reasons. Many times it saves money (less printing costs), provides a healthier environment for workers and customers, is more energy-efficient, along with many other perks to the new green living trend.

Today our focus is on marketing in a more economically-friendly way. Of course, the majority of Magnolia Media’s services are internet-related, so we are very familiar with the marketing avenues we’ll be discussing on our blog today.

E-Newsletters –

Email newsletters are a great way to get the word out about specials, new products, industry news, or specifically just your company news. Have customers sign up for your e-newsletters when they check out at your store register, when they’re browsing your website, or encourage your Facebook or Twitter friends to sign up for your newsletter.

E-Newsletters provide you a way to send out information to a large number of customers or prospects on a small budget. It eliminates the cost of printing postcards or flyers in order to notify past customers of specials or upcoming events, and is a more environmentally-friendly marketing avenue. You also can receive detailed statistics on each email and see how many bounces, opens, forwards, etc. your emails are getting.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) –

Optimizing your website for search engines can have a huge impact on website traffic without even spending a dime on traditional methods of advertising. Investing in one-time optimization or recurring services, will both enhance your rankings on Google, Yahoo, Bing and more. This reduces the need for magazine advertising, phone book advertising, and newspaper ads. We know these are traditional marketing techniques, and many people still swear by them…but online marketing is more environmentally friendly, and is also more profitable for most industries!

E-Business Cards / Email Signatures –

If you’re emailing someone anyway, why not reinforce your company’s name and brand at the bottom of the email? Graphical signatures are more eye-catching and memorable. And functional ones, with links to your website or other helpful links, are interactive for your email contact. Provide helpful information to your friends, customers, prospects, and give them something nice to look at in your email.

While you’re at it, why not show them what’s new with your company or what specials you’re running. Use this necessary email as an opportunity to go ahead and put more information in front of them that they may not otherwise know of. The more you can advertise your brand online for a low cost, the less negative impact you’re making on the environment.

Online Quotes or Brochures –

When an interested person calls and needs a quote for your products or services, do you send them a lengthy quote through the mail? If so, why not eliminate the unnecessary printing and envelopes by simply emailing the quote or brochure to your prospect. It will also get to them sooner, and you may make a sale sooner!

Social Media Marketing –

Marketing your company through Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc. may be a great way to gain exposure through the online market. Many companies are utilizing this free or low-cost (if maintained through an agency) marketing in order to reach the general public through friends, fan pages, and targeted advertising. It’s all online, so it’s a limited effect on the environment!

Text Messaging Campaigns –

More and more companies are using cell phones as a marketing tool to their customers. Text messaging campaigns utilize the internet and wireless phone service to provide your customers with live updates or news. This is a great tool for marketing without effecting the environment!

Promotional Products –

If your company hands out promotional products at trade shows, sales, or events, think about recycled, or “green” promotional products. They can make just as good of a first impression as some others, and some prospects or customers may even be happier to receive a product they know is made from recycled paper or plastic.

Other Green Marketing Ideas:

• Avoid printing large quantities of marketing collateral that go out of date relatively soon.
• With direct mail, use strategically chosen markets instead of general mass mailing, to reduce printing and mailing.
• Save on paper, printing, and postage by sending self-mailers or postcards instead of letters or brochures in envelopes.

So, with all of these ideas, surely your company can find a way to use some more environmentally-friendly methods of marketing. We hope that some of these are ideas you've never considered and that we've spurred on some new concepts to help your business. Let us know if we can be of assistance because we offer many of the above referenced services!

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Do I Really Need A Mobile Website?

To be quite honest, we recommend mobile-friendly websites to virtually any business. The reason for that is because most people, including your customers of course, have a mobile phone. If you want to control how your website looks when they pull it up on their mobile device, then a mobile website is your opportunity to do just that.

Consider your customer base, and let’s say 20% of them will conduct a mobile search for your company to find a phone number, map, menu, or list of services. If your website can’t be easily accessed and viewed through a mobile device, then you risk these customers becoming frustrated at the difficulty of viewing a desktop-sized website, on a tiny mobile screen.  At that point, your website is only 80% effective and limits you to the viewers who are on their home, office or laptop computers.

One Goal In Mind 
The Mobile Marketing Association says “Your web site is your Supermarket, and your mobile site is your 7-Eleven.” What a great concept, and it hits the nail on the head. Don’t you go to the supermarket and the 7-Eleven with two different goals and attitudes? When you head to the supermarket, you expect to spend a longer period of time shopping, and find many products to buy. When you head to the 7-Eleven, or a “convenience store”, you’re looking for a few things in a fraction of the time.

That’s how it is with mobile search. Your customers are looking for you on their mobile device, usually with some specific question in mind which could be your phone number, location, current specials, or menu.  They don’t want to see a photo gallery of past events, or a list of affiliated companies.  People spend hours surfing the web on their computer, but most spend 5-10 minutes on a mobile device, because they usually aren’t just “surfing the web”. Provide them with necessary information, and suggest they visit your full website if they are interested in more information.

Content Arrangement 
Because of the short timeframe of the mobile search, your site needs to quickly and easily project the information that is most important to the on-the-go visitor. Your site content could be similar to your full site, but it should be arranged in the order that is relevant to the mobile user. Your contact information should be easily accessible. Specials and directions should be noticeable. These are the usual needs mobile users have, and if you cater to that, then they will be so fond of your company simply because you made their mobile search that much easier than your competitor might have!

Design Aspects 
To the mobile surfer, design is not the main focus. It can actually hinder their viewing experience because graphics increase the load time, or Flash and JavaScript aren’t even compatible with mobile devices. A desktop site viewed on a mobile device, requires zooming in, zooming out, side scrolling, etc. A mobile site should be designed to have the content as the main focus, and provide helpful information immediately. Design is just an added bonus to make the site more attractive and coordinated with your existing branding. We certainly suggest that you have it customized and branded for your company, but keep the graphics to a minimum compared to a desktop site.

Ready or Not? 
If you’re ready for a mobile website for your company, let us know and we can quickly develop a user-friendly mobile version to have your customers easily finding the information they’re searching for.

If you’re not ready just yet, we suggest you spend some time looking around for information about the use of mobile devices for internet searches, and maybe the importance will jump out at you after seeing some statistics. It isn’t always easy for someone to search on a computer, but most people have access to a mobile phone at all times. The world is turning mobile, and before long, who knows? Maybe mobile websites will overtake conventional websites!