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The chart below shows that email marketing is most effective:

• in the Business to Consumer channel

...for these marketing objectives:

• increasing website traffic
• increasing sales revenue
• improving customer retention

Marketing Sherpa's survey of more than 1,100 marketers identified the effectiveness of email in achieving marketing and sales pipeline objectives such as building brand awareness, increasing website traffic, increasing lead generation, supporting off-line marketing programmes, increasing sales revenue, and improving customer retention.

Marketing Objectives – How Effective is Email? is a post from: Dumfries Business SEO Coach

We use Aweber as our email marketing platform.

Here is what Aweber provides to maximise the number of your emails that are read:

1. Highest email delivery rates
Aweber is recognised by ISPs worldwide as a professional and standards compliant bulk email manager. This, combined with the items below properly implemented, means your message won't get blocked at the ISP level.

2. Email Confirmation Requirement

When someone opts in to an email list by filling in a form on a website, Aweber's standard setting is to send an email requesting confirmation of the opt in request. This is fully compliant with email best practice, and does two things:

• checks the accuracy of the email address entered
• checks that the email address owner really has requested the opt-in

It does have the down-side of add yet another "hurdle" for the subscriber to jump over before receiving the information requested.

When an existing email list is imported to Aweber (instead of people opting in via a sign up form), the first thing Aweber does is to send an email to all imported addresses asking for confirmation that they agree to be included in the list - just as it would if they had opted in "normally".

Without this step, spammers could (and do) bombard recipients with unwanted emails, and you'd leave yourself wide open to spam complaints. (Even when people do opt-in, they forget, and may complain later.)

3. Unsubscribe Link Provided
Every message sent by Aweber includes an unsubscribe link - so the recipient can opt out whenever they want.

4. Spam Risk Assessment
Once your message is entered in Aweber, it runs a spam risk assessment. This warns you of anything in your message subject or content which could be likely to trigger spam filters. You can then edit your message to eliminate the triggers and replace them with alternative words.

5. Bounces Monitored
People change their email addresses, so if you have addresses no longer valid, or where an email box is "full" Aweber flogs this as a "bounce".
This allows you to "clean" your list - by either removing, or updating (if you can) the email record.

6. Complaints Monitored
Compliance with email standards requires that recipients can complain to the service provider if they believe abuse of their email address has occurred. Aweber tracks any complaints from your recipients.

7. Opens Monitored
Aweber tracks how many of your messages were opened by recipients - this is the key result - getting your email read.

8. Clicks Monitored
If you have clickable links in your message, Aweber will track how many people clicked the link
Aweber can also track online sales resulting from your email campaign.

9. Split Testing of Messages
Aweber allows you to split test your messages on lists of over 100 recipients.

The 1st thing to test is always the Subject - since this is a major factor determining the open rate for each message
(other factors affecting open rate are - who the message is from, and when they last received a message from you, and the time of arrival of the message)

This is very important.

Slip Test Example:

I recently sent a message to a small list of just over 400 subscribers.
I used a split test with 2 Subjects, just varying the first few words of the subject: (everything else identical in Subject and body of message)

Subject A: I'll send you a ....
Subject B: Look out for your ....

The open rate for Subject A was 140% higher than for subject B

Email Open Rates – How to Maximise? is a post from: Dumfries Business SEO Coach

The role of the "Search Optimist" is to improve the likelihood that her optimism will be rewarded!

Ever Met a Search Optimist? is a post from: Dumfries Business SEO Coach

Technology is transforming the way business is done, especially in the arena of small business. As a small business, you have a unique advantage to your larger competitors in that your cost for adoption of new technology is minimal, and the difference the technology can make is invaluable. Aside from being able to connect and communicate with a local consumer more easily and more efficiently than before, technology can also enable you to expand your business’s horizons – what started as a local “Main Street” type business can expand into a regional, or even international, player.

So, how does this happen? It is easier than you may think. Most obviously, technology enables you to conduct business via the Internet. Whether you provide a product or a service, you can reach new consumers, check existing consumers, and obtain valuable market research inexpensively and with little upfront costs. The issue of local, regional, or national boundaries is essentially dissolved. In addition, technology also enables you to expand your operations through its role in communications. You can message, IM, video conference, telephone, or interact on one of the many networking sites (both social and private). Lastly, technology has also opened shipping networks, so that it is possible for you to send a package, be it of a product, a signed contract, or a hardcopy of a service provided (e.g. engineering plans, business plan, photographs), to anywhere in the world, in as little as a few days, if you are willing to pay the extra costs.

However, this is considering technology at its broadest level. If you are like many business owners and managers, you may know that such technology exists, but have little conception as to how to adopt it. The truth is that any modern technology is easy to adopt – they have designed it to be so – you only need to know where to start.

The following is a list of new technologies and ways that small businesses can use them to advantage:
Social Media: Social media (sites like Facebook and Twitter) add another dimension to your business operations. You are able to connect with current and potential customers in a whole new way. Not only are you able to provide information on your product or services and relay the news of your company, but you are also able to inquire as to what features or elements they prefer in your product/service offering, improvements they would like to see, etc. Further, you can run promotions in this way as well. The best part about social media however is that it is free to use and, unlike starting a blog without a unique domain name, you may actual gain esteem in the minds of many consumers for the fact of your adoption of the new technology.

Conferencing:

Instead of traveling hundreds, or even thousands, of miles to hold a meeting, you can stay on top of client relationships, project management, and interact with suppliers or distributors via video on your computer. Some technologies will even allow you to interface over a document – each able to read and manipulate the document. Again, the cost is minimal. After all, you don’t necessarily need a huge network like Cisco. As a small business, you can get all the features you need for free through Skype or even just using the video conferencing software already built into many messaging and operating systems, such as iChat on Apple devices.

Networking Sites:

Through free technologies, such as Ning.com, you are able to build your own social networking site. Use this technology to provide a platform for interfacing over a project, for internal communication within your company (particularly useful if you have employees in various locations, working various shifts, or if employees need to upload large documents), or providing a valuable communication point for highly integrated clients, suppliers, distributors, or subsidiaries. There are also many low-cist sites, such as Basecamp, that can provide similar advantages.

Communication:

Lastly, consider communication. If your employees are wide spread, work autonomously, or travel frequently, you may want to consider providing them with smartphones. Smartphones can allow you to tether (meaning to use your phone’s wireless connection to get “online” with your laptop), access email on the go (and respond professionally), open documents, search contacts, etc. Whereas a larger corporation may only be able to afford to do this for select employees, as a small business you would be able to provide smartphones to everyone for minimal cost, a large part of which would be tax deductible.

From Local Business to Regional Presence: is a post from: Dumfries Business SEO Coach

There are three key elements that you should keep in mind...

Relationships
Many businesses make the mistake of trying to use social media as a platform for sales pitches. If you do this, at best you will be ignored; at worse, trashed for trying a cheap ploy to make a sale. Either way, you are wasting a great tool for your business. Instead, focus on making connections with people and developing professional relationships.

When you post acknowledgements, such as a consultant posting “Congrats to XYZ Company for getting the ABC project” or a restaurant posting about an event it is hosting, you promote your product or service while making a personal connection. Those types of posting draw to mind questions to the reader, such as “How did XYZ Company get the ABC project?” The answer is, of course, through the work of the consultant. In the same token, why is the event being hosted by the restaurant? Maybe it was a prize won in a monthly promotion or it could be because the restaurant has a belly dancer the first Monday of every month. In this manner, your business is promoted subliminally while a relationship is built with your clientele.

Additionally, these examples demonstrate how a professional posting would read. You want to establish a professional relationship with your customers, not a social one. By and large, they do not care about your personal life – remember that.

Exposure
Having an active presence in social media also affords your business exposure. If your business is involved in social media, it makes it easier for someone to post a comment. While people can do this with or without your business having an online presence, if you are involved in social media, you can respond to the comment, start a conversation, or develop a poll for the issue.

Local
Lastly, social media for your business should have a local element. You can connect and build professional relationships with other businesses in your area, be they complimentary products/services, businesses with the same demographic, or businesses with similar offerings. The connections you make can serve to create a micro-network with the other businesses. Not only will it serve to increase awareness of your business, but it can also lead to promotional events and other mutually beneficial opportunities.

By and large, social media is free to individuals and businesses to use. It can be tempting to read whatever article about how Facebook saved this business or Twitter revitalized that business. You may be so inspired that you start a Facebook page or Twitter account for your business and start posting and promoting your business right away, but think again.

Social media for business is light years away from the way you use your social account.

If you try to approach social media like you do your friends, you will likely be unsuccessful. Additionally, if you try to make social media into a sales vehicle, it will simply not work. Remember, when you use social media, you are giving a great deal of power to your consumers; while the rewards can be great, so can failure. To make sure this des not happen to your business, make sure that you are using social media properly.

Social Media – Making It Count is a post from: Dumfries Business SEO Coach

Social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, receive a great deal of attention for their uses in business-to-consumer scenarios. In these situations, social media sites can act as a way to build customer relationships, obtain market research, identify trends, etc.

In addition, using business-to-consumer techniques to approach a business customer can even devalue your company’s brand image, making your efforts look haphazard and dated.

For the business-to-business company, social media presents its own advantages and requires its own techniques...

Awareness
One of the most important things you can do to build your business is to build awareness. Using social media you can do things like post pictures, link to pictures and news stories, and post links to your company’s profile on industry sites.

For example, if you have a fitness center, you could include pictures of your gym’s facilities and profiles of the trainers you employ. You could also post links to any news coverage your gym receives and post links to your gym’s profile on any local weight loss groups.

Alternatively, if you sell steel buildings, you could post pictures of the various types of steel buildings you offer and the assorted ways your buildings are used (e.g. warehouse, grain storage, soccer stadium). In addition, you could post links to your company’s profile on group pages centered on farming, industry, fitness centers, etc.

In each example, you are building awareness of the products you offer and the ways in which those products can be used. While you may have many of these elements on your website, including them in your social media will ensure that when someone is looking to fill a need, your company can be found more easily.

Broadcast and Engage
More and more people, including business owners and managers, are looking to social media to find information and recommendations on companies and products before ever using a search engine. As such, having adequate information available where your customers are looking is critical.

An increasing number of businesses are searching for business-to-business companies using the medium of social media, however the level of buy-in is variable – Some companies may do an amazing amount of business through social media while others may only get on social media sites for personal use.

One of the easiest ways to catch the attention of the entire range is to broadcast and engage.

So what kind of content could you broadcast?

• industry news
• trending topics related to your business
• new product development
• new technology
• seasonal offers
• ...etc.

Essentially, give your potential customers a reason to visit your social media page.

The goal is to establish your business as an expert in your industry or, in other words, as an industry resource. Once you have established your company as such, business customers will visit your profile or “friend it” just to get an update on what is happening in the industry.

Further, engage your business customers (current or potential) in the same way. For instance, if you have a graphic design company, you would want to engage your business customers by

• broadcasting market research reports and findings, the relative successes clients have had using your services, etc.
• responding to comments as “the” business commentator.

For example: you might post the results from the latest Nielsen report, and generate a response from one of your customers who writes something like “So, Facebook really is taking over the Internet.”

Then instead of commenting as a friend would (e.g. “Yeah, my kids are always on the site”), you would want to respond, “Yeah, apparently, over 50 percent of consumers get on a social media site everyday. Did you know, according to the report, over 60 percent of new business is found via one those types of sites?”

In this example, you keep the focus on the business and demonstrate your attention to market trends.

Credibility
Broadcasting and engagement in this way can build your credibility, but social media sites can build your company’s credibility even further. How? By integrating your profile with your customers.

For example, ask your customers to write the comments regarding your products or services on your Facebook wall. Including this sort of element on your Facebook profile is similar to the “Testimonials” pages seen on many traditional websites. As the comments are actually posted by your customers in an independent medium, their statements are seen as more genuine than ones you would publish to your own website, making your business all the more credible.

B2B Marketing Using Social Media is a post from: Dumfries Business SEO Coach