5 Email Marketing Tips For Christmas

It's that time of year again – the goose is getting fat and the shrewd internet marketers are busy putting finishing touches to this season's killer email campaign. For many businesses, Christmas is a superb opportunity to capitalise on the nation's willingness to splash out on family and friends.

Experts predict that approximately £6.4 billion will be spent online during December 2010, an increase on the £5.5 billion spent in December last year, according to IMRG and Capgemini. In this article, we'll take a look at how you can ensure you get a slice of the pie this Christmas.

Email Marketing Ideas to Boost Christmas Sales
As with all forms of marketing, your company's email newsletter shouldn't stand still. With increased online buying comes more competition and greater shopper expectations, happy to give their well earned cash to those offering the best Christmas shopping experience and value for money.

The following tips are designed to help hone your email marketing techniques in preparation for the holiday season.

1. Check Your Calendar
Timing is everything. Ireland, for example, has a traditional day (the 8th of December) set aside for shopping. Are there any regional variances relevant to your target audience? Consider arranging your campaign to coincide with this collective surge in consciousness. Learn from last year, what worked well, what was the busiest period?

2. Subject Line
Don't under estimate the importance of your email's subject line. Time spent working through ideas and trying them out on people can make all the difference with how many of your emails actually get opened.

• Use relevant product names where possible
• Create a sense of urgency
• Include your unique proposition
• Avoid generic, unimaginative headings at all costs

3. Less Is More
Instead of bombarding your audience with promotions, consider focusing on a single well thought through offer. A genuinely attractive promotion over a longer period is likely to carry far more weight than a splash of one-off, low value deals.

4. Conversions
Bringing people to your site is one thing, but converting those prospects to sales is entirely another. Ensure your call-to-action is clear and defined on the page and double check the 'customer journey' – from shopping cart to payment. Consider using split testing with small samples to gauge responses.

5. How Much Is Too Much?
If you're going to step up a gear this Christmas compared to your usual mailing frequency, consider warning your customers first. Suddenly and aggressively targeting current subscribers could well result in customers unsubscribing. Building a little excitement with an imaginative campaign comprising of a sequence of emails will both warm your subscribers up and, better still, pique their interest.

Online shopping is an increasingly popular activity, especially in view of the busy schedules people keep. By running these few checks you can ensure that your Christmas email marketing campaigns will be an effective resource for your customers, and a sound investment for you. If you need help preparing an email marketing campaign for Christmas, call 01454 261111.

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8 Ways to Make Your Website Work for You – Part 2

In this age of digital marketing, it's all too easy to spend your time chasing the latest social media fad or hot tip. Even the most seasoned internet marketers occasionally lose sight of the basics from time to time – foundations upon which the internet marketing industry was built, and without which wouldn't exist.

In the first part of this article, we looked at some basics such as your web address, meta tags (the part of your web page that search engines use in their results) and getting your message right. In part two we'll continue to look at some of the key concepts behind a successful web strategy.

Ensuring an Excellent User Experience
Once you have won your well earned web traffic, the next part of the process is to lead them to the sale – rather than to a frustrating experience which will very quickly get them looking elsewhere. The following four points will help.

1. The Customer Experience
Preparing your website to offer a successful customer experience is absolutely key to your bottom line. When organising your content and preparing for the next big promotion, consider the following key questions:

• Does your site architecture lead your visitors to the sale?
• Are your calls to action clear, obvious and scattered throughout your sales process?
• Is your sales copy honed, including headlines, sub headings and short, succinct copy?
• Is there an opportunity to persuade customers to take the next step by a good use of pictures and even video?
• Can you offer a guarantee to help alleviate your customer's concerns that may hinder the sale?

2. Keep It Current
A widely acknowledged best practice SEO technique is to update your site regularly with fresh, relevant content. This will feed the search engine 'bots' with fresh material and will help to get your site indexed over that of a static competitor.

Keep the mix of material relevant to your target audience and don't be afraid to mix it up – home-grown articles, resource links and media content will all help to pique the interest of both search engines and visitors alike.

3. The Follow-Through
The 'follow-through' (as we'll call it here) acts as a bridge between you, your customer and any future business they may send your way. However you decide to proceed (newsletter, ezine, email sequence etc.), you should do so immediately.

Establishing a relationship through meaningful, targeted content will turn a potential single purchase buyer into a meaningful long-term customer – actively engaged for when you're ready to launch your next killer offer.

4. Statistics
The thought of delving into website performance statistics is enough to reduce even the hardiest of internet entrepreneurs into a quivering wreck. Yet it's not as difficult as most believe it to be. A number of tools enable site owners to check some key traffic pointers or, for the more analytical approach, provide a myriad of data into every conceivable corner of your website.

Either way, if your website isn't working for you, it could provide some very useful insights into where problems may lie and more importantly, enable you to 'tweak and test' in order to resolve the issue.

If you would like to review the effectiveness of your website, please call us on 01454 261111.

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Why SEO Still Matters

The meteoric rise of social networking as an internet marketing platform has, to an extent, lead to a marginalisation of more traditional online marketing techniques such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) methods. Whilst there's little doubting social media's potential as a powerful marketing tool, be not fooled, SEO remains as relevant as it ever was, perhaps more so.

One thing is clear however, in the world of online marketing one must adapt to survive. This doesn't mean abandoning key fundamentals though such as attracting traffic using great content. If you're considering going back to basics and developing an effective search marketing approach, then read on.

Is SEO Dead?
With all the talk about Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and many more successful social media platforms you could be forgiven for thinking search marketing is no longer needed. So where does SEO fit in now and should you be using it to help attract new customers?

The Proof Is In The Pudding
Instead of talking about its death, we should be talking about the evolution of SEO and how it can work hand in hand with other online marketing tactics such as Social Media Optimisation (SMO). SEO has been proven time again as an effective way of attracting traffic – but more importantly the right kind of traffic.

In the evolving world of internet marketing, one thing remains true; content is still king and remains the foundation of any effective online marketing strategy. Great content, optimised to appeal to your target audience will attract attention from your target audience, whether they find it from a search or have it recommended to them via Twitter or Facebook.

SEO v. Social Media – Who's the Winner?
SEO and SMO are really about one and the same thing – and by nature an extension of each other. Unless you produce meaningful content that appeals to your target audience, neither approach will provide any meaningful return on your investment (time, money or otherwise).

It is a little difficult to argue that SEO is not as important as SMO as long as the concept of search still exists. It's important to remember that not everyone is an active Facebook user, or a Twitter enthusiast. The key is knowing your customer and adapting your marketing activities accordingly.

When Is An Expert Really An Expert?
There are many out there who would readily (and do) proclaim to be an SEO expert. The internet is riddled with them. But how do you tell the charlatan from the guru?

Here's a simple rule of thumb, if you are promised instant rankings or guaranteed results without any work on your website, then be very weary. An experienced SEO consultant will take more of a comprehensive view, which would likely include some or all of the following elements.

• Understanding who your customer is and how to attract their attention
• Conduct research to identify keywords and phrases that will attract qualified traffic
• Make recommendations for updating your website structure and content
• Develop a plan for acquiring quality inbound links from related, trusted websites
• Monitor results and make recommendations for converting your newly won traffic

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Social Media Spotlight: Foursquare

There's a new social media platform contender in town, eagerly snapping at the heels of the big boys. Not that Facebook and Twitter have too much to worry about at this stage. Well, maybe Twitter a little bit. Last month technology website mashable.com reported that new social media platform Foursquare was approaching its 4 millionth member – certainly not a number to be sniffed at.

So, what is Foursquare? Well, according to their website, it's a place to "Check-in, find your friends, unlock your city" or, more explicitly "Foursquare on your phone gives you and your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points and unlock badges for discovering new things".

Discovering Foursquare
Similar to Facebook's Places App, Foursquare enables users to update and comment on their geographical location at any one time from their mobile device.

The release of version 2.0 for the iPhone will no doubt help Foursquare's fan base grow, currently growing at an estimated 20,000 users per day (source: mashable.com) – a rate that is leaving competitors such as Gowalla far behind.

Foursquare in the UK
After establishing a strong American user base, Foursquare's UK presence will no doubt be aided by their partnership with Vodafone UK, announced earlier this year - a move that will see customers gain instant access to the feature via their new handset. A partnership which will give the platform exposure to millions of potential new users.

Not content it seems with a mere UK mobile market share, Foursquare's General Manager Evan Cohen recently confirmed that the start-up has reached out to "all major carriers and handset manufacturers in the U.S. and abroad," and that they expect to "strike similar deals in the future." (source: mashable.com).

Foursquare and Your Business
Not all businesses will want to engage with customers using Foursquare. The obvious application of the platform suits primarily consumer facing businesses such as restaurants, cafés, hotels, hairdressers, retailers, attractions and more. This doesn't mean to say other businesses are excluded though, especially if Foursquare adds new features with the aim of diversifying its user base.

Ultimately, if you are already focussed on delivering excellent value for money and outstanding customer service then you're doing what it takes to win over Foursquare users.

As Foursquare continues to grow its user base in the UK however, you will be well advised to add and then claim your business in order to start engaging with customers on a whole new level.

If you would like to review the effectiveness of social media marketing activities, please call 01454 261111.

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