And email marketing is by far the BEST and CHEAPEST way to stay in touch with your customers and build rock-solid relationships with them — so they’ll buy from you again and again! (This is called the “lifetime value” of your customers, and it’s extremely profitable.)

Consider this: About 99% of your website visitors will leave without buying anything from you on their first visit. But by creating a great opt-in offer you can at least get their contact details — and then use email marketing to follow up, build relationships, and turn them into paying customers. Business 2.0 recently reported that permission-based marketing messages enjoy a response rate of 11.5%, compared to a mere 0.55% for banner click through’s.

If you’re stuck for ideas on how to use email marketing to ramp up your profits? Here you can start with 10 proven tactics:

1. Develop relationships & establish credibility by offering free information: Highlighting how you have helped past clients is an effective way to show what you can do.
2. Acknowledge the subscription of a user: Plainly put, you must give subscribers a choice. Subscribers must make a conscience decision that they wish to receive your email. Avoid stealth sign-up methods that collect addresses. Avoid pre-checked newsletter boxes that opt users in with little deference to their true desires. Confirmation of all subscriptions should be required.
   
   To help you maintain an efficient operation, you can automate the acknowledgement process by setting up an auto responder to your subscription email. An auto responder feature allows you to create a customized message that will automatically be generated and sent to your list member to let him/her know that you have received a message. You can start out your acknowledgement email as “Thank you for subscribing to our weekly newsletter.”Keep a record of all requests for subscription to your newsletter or product offerings, even years afterward.
3. Allow users to unsubscribe from your list: Be respectful. Always include an opt out message at the bottom of the page. Include clear instructions and a link for opting out of future mailings. Not only will this save you the headache of dealing with people that really want off your list, it builds trust in clients that are actually reading your emails.
   
   Keep your email list clean by removing faulty email addresses. ISPs monitor the volume of email sent as well as the failure rates. Large volumes of both are indicative of spam and could result in your domain being black listed. ISP’s make the assumption that you are a spammer & could block all emails from your domain.
4. Personalize: Response rates to email campaigns are said to increase with the personalization of emails. People are prone to respond more favorably to emails that start with their names, or personalized salutations such as “Dear Susan.”  However, personalize your emails only if you have information on the first names of your subscribers or opt-in list. If you’ve incomplete data, never attempt to personalize your emails and have your emails start with “Dear Unknown.” There is nothing more irritating to an email recipient than being labeled as an “unknown.”
5. Subjects: Be honest with subject line. Make sure your subject line is relevant and capture the reader’s interest. If the first couple of sentences are not related to the subject line, you will lose your audience. Many email readers screen their email by simply deleting those topics they deem SPAM.
6. Offer electronic “loyalty coupons”: This is a great way to get your existing customers to buy from you again and again. Simply send each of your customers a coupon that they can print and bring with them into your store or use on your website. It is always a good idea to make your coupons valid for a limited time only to motivate your customers to make a purchase as soon as possible. Follow-up offers are one of the most powerful ways to build a profitable business because.
7. Clarify your Privacy Policy & Contact Info: Put your contact info in two places within the email. Bombard the text with ‘click here’ or repetitive plugs doesn’t usually do much but look like a hard sell. Two well placed and clickable contact links near the top and bottom of the email makes for easy and effective responses. Trust is essential in creating stronger customer relationship on the Internet. When a visitor subscribes to your newsletter and gives his or her contact information and other pertinent details, the person assumes that his/her information will be used only in-house, never shared, sold or rented so clearly articulating your policy. State on the registration forms what kind of information user may be willing to provide.
8. Test, Test and Test More: Create a test group, view formatting in an email client prior to sending any emails to your list! Test all the links contained within the email message and make sure they are properly formatted and work! Do a test mailing and send to a small population in your group to test your message. Conduct an A/B split test to determine the effectiveness of your message. Make sure that the sampling is a large enough that the results will be an accurate reflection of the messages effectiveness. Put your eye so that the same person doesn’t get more email at same time.
9. Respond promptly to email inquiries: The hallmark of good customer service on the Internet is the quick response time to email inquiries. Make sure that you respond to emails from your subscribers quickly to assure the person that you are taking care of his/her concerns. Offer to answer any additional questions they may have, and let them know that you are available to speak with them at their convenience. This can significantly increase your chances of closing a sale by providing your leads with extra information.
10. Track and analyze the results: As with any marketing campaign, tracking the results and optimizing performance over time is absolutely necessary. Thankfully, sophisticated email marketers can track insightful and actionable data that can be used to evaluate performance using Google Analytics & other softwares.. Important metrics to analyze are pass-along, click-through, and conversion rates. Marketers separate the click-through and conversion rates by original customers from referrals and evaluate their respective performances. These metrics will alert a marketer to which offers and customers drive the highest ROI.

I hope by implementing these practical policies, you can increase sales + traffic to your site.

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Now-a-days, every online user knows about Google Adsense Program and wants to make full/part time earnings from it (such a popular product by Google). Today, I’ll discuss about Google Adsense future in my blog.

Recently, Google announced in their adsense blog of having more than “1 Million Adsense Publishers” (A huge list of publishers that Google have).

You also must hear about Adsense new ads layout though only some of you noticed it. Google is experimenting with it’s new adsense ads layout. Publishes, on whose networks, these new layout ads are running, earning a lot better because these ads more like website inside stuff instead of a ad of third party website.

I noticed a thread of WebMasterWorld about Adsense future. The next thing that arise in my mind what will be future of Google Adsense program in next 5 years? Will they capture the rest of publishers or it’ll be difficult to survive in the market?

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So, what is it that would differentiate your website from the others? It takes only a few minutes (in most cases, a few seconds) for a visitor to pass by your site before he gets what he wants on the internet.

In a world, where billions of websites are available, yours is just one of them. Branding is the key here to hit the dart. In other words, to be noticed amongst the many is an art in itself.

Last month, I wrote an article on “Why branding is an essential aspect of marketing” and now, these few tips would help you make a start to be that one in a million websites:

Emphasize on what you do and not on who you are – Your website content should clearly project the commodity that you offer and not what you are all about. Use appropriate and minimal words to define your products/services. However, this does not mean that you should not give out information regarding your company. Ensure that you have a separate page depicting the corporate identity and stating what your organization stands for.

Attractive Website – A visually attractive website can count on more visitors than that of a less appealing one. Make appropriate use of colors that is in – sync with your theme. This could be done with the help of pictorial descriptions that make it easier for the visitor to understand.  However, make sure that you balance all the aspects appropriately to give the perfect output.

Logo – A logo would give a picture to your entity. It would define your commodity giving a glimpse into what you stand for. Devising an effective tagline along with your logo is an added advantage. This combined entity would form a memory which the visitor could remember and relate to, even after he has closed your website.

Blogs & Videos – An internal blog giving updates about your organization as well as the industry would be an asset. There are definitely a certain set of people who constantly look for the latest. Keeping your website updated with all the latest blog posts would definitely act as advantage. This way, your website would be renowned as a leader in its domain.

Additionally, make your presence felt in the external domains as well. These include contributing blogs, articles and press releases in other websites meant for this specific purpose. Also, share these posts within your network in the industry.  Your frequency in constantly sharing information would determine your popularity. So, “the more the better”!

Incorporating videos wherever necessary would also do the trick! Time constraints might lead the visitor skip your page but now you can stop him with that video which would hardly take a few minutes to get an overview of the entire commodity or the concept.

Research – Any new initiative on your site should always be accompanied by thorough research in your field. You definitely would not want to attempt something that has been tried and tested a several times. Conduct online and offline surveys amongst your target audience to know what they are looking for. Although it is time consuming but the results would set you apart from competitors. Also, you can take expert opinion in this regard, if the need arises.

Controversy Sells – Controversy definitely grabs eyeballs. The purpose of making your website known would be achieved instantly with more number of hits than ever. However, ensure that it is for the right reason.

Search Engine & Social Media Optimization – Effective optimization of your site could take you to places. If you are not proficient in SEO, hire a specialist. It would be worth it. It would also help to generate more leads, thus enhancing your business further.

Active participation in various forums and groups would enhance your views and opinions, enabling you to see the broader picture. You would definitely gain an insight into what other professionals in the industry are working on and what they feel about it.

All in all, online branding is cost effective compared to offline branding (I hope you’re agree with me). Also, the reach is much wider within a minimal amount of time. So next time, work on the above lines till I update you through my next post!

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Few of my friends, who were looking for job change, got many calls for interview. Most of time, interviewer’s main query was regarding “Social Media”. Below mentioned are the major questions they’ve asked for:

• How to create social media marketing campaign?
• What’s the plan & strategy behind social media?
• What are the activities you’re going to do?
• What the goals are?
• How much time you’ll spend and time to display the results?
• How you’ll measure the results and what will be the expected results?
• And what are the risks behind Social Media?

So I thought to write my next post about “Designing Social Media Marketing Plan”. Here’s the post content, start with “Why” word:

Why Social Media:

• The most effective way of getting users attention OR To reach online people.
• People tend to take part in online conversations and are happy to communicate with brands.
• The information found on the Social Web can be genuinely interesting and quite informative when applied to a business.

Social Media Marketing Plan Steps:

1. Start with the Goals
2. Do research to Design the Strategy
3. Take a Call on “Actual path”
4. Put into Practice
5. Result Measurements
6. Risks
7. KPI (Key Performance Indicators)

1. Start with the Goals:

• Increase brand awareness
• Build authority
• Learn more about your target audience
• Gain inbound links
• Educate and inform customers
• Improve customer service
• Monitor brand reputation
• Reach new channels of customers.
• Customers Testimonials
• Direct connection between customer & the company
• Generate leads & drive sales.

2. Create a Strategy Based on Research:

• Determining if your target audience is online
• Examining the successes and failures of other social media campaigns
• Creating realistic timelines
• How to measure the results

3. Actual path:

• Building Relationships
• Creating a Schedule
• Staying the Course
• Measuring the Results
• Making the Right Tweaks

Now, it’s time implement all the plans. In simple terms, you need to adapt below mentioned practical steps:

4. Put into Practices: Mix of content you intend to create, and build work flow around it.

a) Methods:

• Write/Read a blog
• Share a Photo, Video
• Bookmark a WebPage
• Post a Question OR Start a Poll
• Give replies to asked questions OR participate into other’s Poll
• Add a Comment
• Write a review
• Subscribe to a Website
• Being everyone, not only in your own domain

b) Community:Most social media strategies have to address community and how you will embrace the people you seek to gather around your business.

c) Neighbors:Reach out to others in your community, comment, and share.

d) Attention:Build awareness and encourage relationships with the media you’re making.

e) Pay attention and participate in the networks whose audience matters to you in the context of your business objectives. Don’t waste time in the networks that fail either test.

5. Measurement:

• Reader comments
• RSS Subscribers
• Twitter Followers
• Facebook Fans
• Click Throughs
• Diggs
• Stumbles
• Podcast Subscribers
• Search Results
• Links
• Impressions
• And last but not the least Analytics.

6. Risks:

• You might lose control.
• People talk about you in a bad way.

7. KPI: To know the “performance metrics” in a simple way, I’ve named them as KPI and terms are:

• Traffic
• Links
• & Branding.

I’m expecting huge comments like my other posts about this social plan, please feel free to post your queries, feedback & suggestions.

Read Twitter Marketing Plan, Strategy & Tips.

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Facebook is the solid example of branding, Read Here…

It’s a niche area that is earned by a company over a period of time. The audience would get attracted to a product in a much better way only if a brand image is created. A brand is created when a product/service is appreciated and accepted by the target audience. With this comes the challenge of getting customer approval.

This involves getting a positive impression in customer minds at the very first attempt itself. This would require massive campaigning that would include advertising, hoarding and banners containing punch lines as well as other forms of Public Relations tools to make your label known far and wide.

The main aspect of any marketing project as well as branding is the right usage of Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP).

Segmentation is important for selecting the geographic region as well as the people dwelling in that region based upon which you can strategise your branding campaign. After segmenting, you need to select your customers or the target audience from that specific geographical location. Now, based upon the above two components, your product or service should be introduced in such a manner that it captures the attention of the audience.

This is because a brand communication strategy varies to a large extent on the geographic, economic and cultural factors. Based on the social norms of a community/country/region where a product or a brand is being introduced, the strategy for branding is devised. For instance, the people in the Gulf countries have a totally different mind set from those living in the west. Hence, fashion would have a different meaning for both these regions. The west would have a greater scope of promoting and branding a fashion house as compared to the Gulf in the east.

Branding has many other components which include a brand logo, communication strategy, a tag line that defines the company etc. This gives a specific identification with which the consumers can relate to. Usually, it takes decades to create a brand out of a product. This is because the market is highly consumer driven and any product exists in the market only if it is approved by a consumer or the target audience.

Today, Internet being more of a utility than an innovation, branding taken a new turn altogether. Online branding has become a niche area in marketing. With many people hooked to the net, branding on the net is equally important along with the offline campaigning. Online branding would include viral marketing, e – mail marketing and the list goes. The options are numerous to choose from. Hence, based on your product, select a few that would enhance your marketing campaign.

All in all, branding is a niche aspect in marketing without which it would be difficult for any organization to compete and survive in the market. Reach out to media buyers to enhance your marketing and to improve your brand.

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