One of the earliest adopters of Internet marketing in the world of Fortune 500 companies was the Coca-Cola Corporation. Today, this huge purveyor of soft drinks has one of the strongest online portfolios in the world. More than 12,000 websites link to the Coca-Cola homepage, which itself is a stunning display of Internet savvy. Their homepage alone sports an auto-updating social network column, an embedded video, a unique piece of advertising art, frequently rotating copy, an opt-in user registration tab, tie-in branding with pop culture properties, and even a link to the company's career opportunities page. Despite how busy that sounds, the Coca-Cola homepage is clean and easy to read. It is a triumph of Internet marketing for its confidence, personality, and professionalism.
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your business, whether your goal is to build your brand or sell more stuff. Our field guide provides everything you need to know to make the most of this platform. Learn how to create an email marketing plan, design effective emails, and test them. Then discover the power of automation and how to measure the success of your emails.
But what if it’s not? Let’s start with the phrase: “We help you keep your business running.” The very first word (“we”) is a problem. We-focused copy is an issue—almost without fail. It communicates from the perspective of the company, not the customer. It’s the equivalent of a person introducing themselves and dominating the airspace with their story. Correct “we-focused” copy by rewriting every sentence to begin with the word “you” or a verb. Here’s how WebGazer can change three sentences on its landing page:
In the case of Parkpnp, context and drive are pivotal factors for its solution. An app that allows you to find a parking space might be used in advance of an anticipated painful parking experience, such as major sporting events. But it’s more likely to be used in the heat of the moment, when the pain for a prospect is most visceral and distractions abound.
The brand uses email to increase sales at all points on the customer journey – pre-booking, post-booking and post-holiday. This wide remit means the key aim is to “manage customer interactions of the whole journey rather than a marketing or service touchpoint.” As a result, it has a different strategy for each stage of the customer journey and “email marketing takes on a different type of beast in each of those strategies”.
Marketing emails need to be personalized to the reader and filled with interesting graphics. Few people want to read emails that are addressed "Dear Sir/Madam" -- as opposed to their first or last name -- and even fewer people want to read an email that simply gives them a wall of text. Visuals help your recipients quickly understand what the point of the email is.
In addition to linking to Letter Shoppe's designs (available on merchandise that is ultimately sold by Redbubble), the email campaign includes an endearing quote by the Featured Artist: "Never compromise on your values, and only do work you want to get more of." Redbubble's customers are likely to agree -- and open other emails in this campaign for more inspiring quotes.
Create a landing page that’s not your homepage. If you’ve recently created a website for your company, your landing page might be your homepage, but they’re two different creatures. A landing page is designed to convert prospects into customers. It speaks to visitors looking for something specific, features content relevant to that particular item, and contains a call-to-action customized to that precise offering. On the other hand, a homepage serves a broad audience, features widely-relevant content, and may not have an immediate CTA.
Check out this landing page from Slack. They have a witty headline that’s complemented by a video so that potential leads can see how Slack works. The trick here is you have to have a professional video that showcases your product or service. High quality content builds trust with potential customers. Ensure all of your content is created professionally by hiring a team of experts.
Email marketing is the practice of nurturing leads and driving sales through email communications with your customers. Like social media, the goal is to remind users that you’re here and your product is waiting. Unlike social media, however, you can be a lot more aggressive with your sales techniques, as people expect that email marketing will contain offers, product announcements and calls to action.
But just one category continues to perform well year after year: email marketing. The reason is clear: For ten years in a row, email generates the highest ROI for marketers. For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI and gives marketers the broadest reach of all the channels available to them. Despite the plethora of tools available to marketers, email marketing is simply the best bet for business growth.
Customers are often researching online and then buying in stores and also browsing in stores and then searching for other options online. Online customer research into products is particularly popular for higher-priced items as well as consumable goods like groceries and makeup. Consumers are increasingly using the Internet to look up product information, compare prices, and search for deals and promotions.[21]
But he is very busy. He is information-overloaded. He is jaded and cynical and suspects you’re full of crap. He is not ready to invest a lot of time in seeing what you have to offer, or trying it out. The idea of reading through multiple pages of your content, of having to check out a bunch of files or a sequence of videos, not only bores him…but triggers his avoidance reflex.
I also write and read a lot. I’ve come to the same conclusion you have. I write all my own content on my sites, and I will hardly ever outsource content on client sites, unless there’s a specific area of expertise I require. (For example, I hire a retired periodontist, become medical writer, for one of my clients with a periodontal practice, just to get all the facts correct.)
A key objective is engaging digital marketing customers and allowing them to interact with the brand through servicing and delivery of digital media. Information is easy to access at a fast rate through the use of digital communications. Users with access to the Internet can use many digital mediums, such as Facebook, YouTube, Forums, and Email etc. Through Digital communications it creates a multi-communication channel where information can be quickly shared around the world by anyone without any regard to who they are.[28] Social segregation plays no part through social mediums due to lack of face to face communication and information being wide spread instead to a selective audience. This interactive nature allows consumers create conversation in which the targeted audience is able to ask questions about the brand and get familiar with it which traditional forms of Marketing may not offer.[29]
There are plenty of guides to marketing. From textbooks to online video tutorials, you can really take your pick. But, we felt that there was something missing — a guide that really starts at the beginning to equip already-intelligent professionals with a healthy balance of strategic and tactical advice. The Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing closes that gap.
Your headline is your opportunity to convince your audience of that value within the first line. What you’re offering will determine what style of headline you write. Do you want to answer a specific question and fulfill a need? Do you want to inform or teach your audience something new? Or, do you want to offer them an opportunity to try your new product?
There are plenty of guides to marketing. From textbooks to online video tutorials, you can really take your pick. But, we felt that there was something missing — a guide that really starts at the beginning to equip already-intelligent professionals with a healthy balance of strategic and tactical advice. The Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing closes that gap.
This brightly-branded email provider prides itself on creating ‘delightful customer experiences’. They’re serious about it too, with an almost dizzying array of automation workflows and rules on offer. As a bonus – Drip also includes free autoresponders triggered by events that happen in third party tools such as Shopify, Facebook, Stripe, Unbounce and many more.
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Conversion rate optimization is all about testing. Many companies get too bogged down in design and what they think looks best and will convert. At the end of the day, you don’t know until you test. At IMI, we have the tools, technology, and expertise to not only build well-optimized web pages but to test them once they go live. Our conversion rate optimization can not only save our client’s money but generate millions in revenue.
The biggest issue I have yet to resolve is the majority of clients I work with have customer lists in the the THOUSANDS, but have never embraced email marketing. Through personal experience with several of the platforms listed here they will not let you load your current customer list and start emailing. Even if the lists are validated and cleaned through a source like NeverBounce. With the new GDPR rules, they only want emails that have current, ongoing engagement. So in other words, even though you have been in business for years and have a list of current emails from current and past customers, you cannot load them in to these platforms with any success. This makes it very difficult for legacy businesses that now want to start communicating with all their prospects and customers.
Once you have built a list and identified your audience, segment this list into more specific audiences so that you can target different groups with custom campaigns. Not all of your list will want to receive the same content, so this allows you to tailor content so you send relevant messages to relevant audiences at different stages of the customer buying cycle.
The only information you need to communicate to your prospects is their email address. However, many optin pages will request a lot of information such as first name, last name, phone number, occupation, physical address,etc. All these extra information is unnecessary and not useful especially for converting prospects to clients or subscribers. Make the first name and email the maximum information you want to collect. In fact, label the name field is optional. Any information beyond email and optional name will scare away some sensitive and security-minded visitors.
It is very rare for an individual to enter a management role early in his or her career. Most marketing managers have spent several years working somewhere else on a marketing team. This assumes the existence of at least a bachelor's degree, but an advanced degree such as a master’s in marketing or business administration can give an aspiring manager a deciding edge.
In this new world of digital transparency brands have to be very thoughtful in how they engage with current and potential customers. Consumers have an endless amount of data at their fingertips especially through social media channels, rating and review sites, blogs, and more. Unless brands actively engage in these conversations they lose the opportunity for helping guide their brand message and addressing customer concerns.
Use it as a lead magnet/free mini-course. You can also use an autoresponder as a lead magnet to attract new subscribers to your email list. This is commonly done in the form of a free “mini-course”, or a free “challenge”, which promises to deliver a series of emails containing lessons (or other valuable information) over the course of several days or weeks. There is a high perceived value with a mini-course or a challenge like this, which makes it a very effective lead magnet.
