Email Marketing Tips!

If you're a small business and need to send out emails in bulk, it can be frustrating without the right tools onboard. You especially need to avoid getting listed as a "spammer" unintentionally. To successfully reach customers and prospects, CONNECT has been using a leading email marketing service, Constant Contact. There are other providers on the market you can use but generally here is what you should look for:

Use a reputable email marketing service with good ISP relationships, knowledge of industry conventions and practices, and familiarity with how to avoid blacklisting. They are the ally you need! If you've ever babysat a long distribution list email send, you'll be amazed at how much easier using a service like this will make your job. And you get great reporting back concerning the results: who opened your email, who visited your links, etc.

Simplify your code. Simple HTML emails or text emails are best. Using a good tool like Constant Contact makes this easier to accomplish.

Avoid spam filter "trigger" keywords. They do change often but some common ones include: "buy now," "100% satisfied," "congratulations," and "free" anything! Here's a good guide: if it would turn you off to opening an email or make it "feel like spam" to you, keep it out! If you're looking for the full info on spam rules, follow this link to Constant Contact's tutorial on CAN-SPAM Rules.

Make sure your subject line meshes with what's inside your email. The clearer, the better.

Proofread - twice! - before you hit "send." Improper English is a spam trigger. Make your high school English teacher proud - use proper spelling and grammar.

Finally, always include an opt-out with your emails and never send to unqualified lists of emails. Email marketing can be a super relationship builder for your company when done right but that initial relationship must always be there for it to really benefit your cause. [Top]

Tackling Online Advertising

Advertising with Google AdWords

Who uses the phone book anymore to find business resources? Chances are, not your customers! If you've been trying to build your presence online, you've probably considered or ventured into pay-per-click advertising or PPC. And one of the most effective PPC platforms available today is Google AdWords. While it can generate good traffic for your website and deliver more qualified leads for your business, PPC ads are not inexpensive! Going about it the right way can make a huge difference, both for your budget and your results! Here are some things they've helped us learn that we can pass on to you:

Send traffic to the right "landing page"

Your ads shouldn't all land customers on your home page, which is the default setting. You should create customized landing pages for your ads. This means customers land on a page that is very relevant to the ad they saw, and one that includes a good "call to action" that furthers your relationship with this new prospect. For instance, a CONNECT advertisement for disaster recovery services would land on our disaster recovery page of the website or a special landing page offering something related to disaster recovery - not our home page, which also includes network support.

Know Where your Customers Are

Don't waste time or money advertising in areas you don't or can't serve. New "Adwords" campaigns on Google and Yahoo PPC campaigns will register your campaign to run in all 50 states and Canada as a default. Don't forget to check where your ads will run.

Advertise in the Search network, not the Content network

Search network ads pop up when somebody uses a search engine. Content networks are sites partnering with the search engine to run ads. Unless your ad is specifically targeting the audience of these Content sites, like a special offer relevant to the very content they are viewing, it is probably not a worthwhile place for you to be.

Decide whether you're iPhone Appropriate

Again, the default setting for Google Adwords campaigns is to run on the iPhone and other mobile devices with internet browsers. This is valuable for some businesses, like retailers. While so many more people are using their smartphones for internet searches these days, the more complicated/high-value/non-localized products sale is still more computer-based. If your business fits that profile, turn off iPhone searches and save some money.

Use very targeted campaigns and Ad Groups, not "broad matches"

The broader your match to the keywords you select, the wider a net you are casting for prospects. But, this can also result in matching for queries that you're really not relevant for, and will drive up your ad spend. Advertising with "exact match" keywords is a better way to start.

It's a pretty complex task managing a PPC campaign well. It requires careful setup and very close monitoring. Looking for that expertise? Call us and we'll get you CONNECTed. [Top]

Calm the Social Media Chaos

Find Order with TweetDeck

Most businesses we work with are establishing their social media presence and seeing great results. With many social media outlets to choose from, chances are your business posts information on at least three of the major social outlets (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter). If you're feeling frazzled by trying to manage it all, you're not alone. We've experienced this ourselves at CONNECT but found a solution we want to share with you.

Instead of having to waste time flitting between login panels on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and wherever else your company is social, you can use an aggregator tool that gives you a unified view of your activities. There are several to choose from, each with its own appeal. answerYES, our online marketing partner, recommended TweetDeck for us. We use it to schedule content updates across multiple channels instead of having to update each channel individually. TweetDeck (which was just acquired by Twitter last week) is a real-time content manager that sits in the background of your desktop, iPad, or smartphone. Schedule updates across all your social channels, monitor mentions of your company or brands, and engage with customers and potential customers as conversations happen. TweetDeck is extremely handy for PR and reputation management. And it is free! It's a real efficiency builder.

While we ourselves are still learning how to best take advantage of the marketing opportunities social media presents, we understand the more touch-points we have to engage potential customers (and support existing ones) gives us an edge over the competition. Marketing online these days goes way beyond having a website. Social media aggregation tools like TweetDeck help to keep it all lively yet manageable. [Top]

Toner and Ink Specials

CONNECT sells toner and ink for almost all of the printers our clients use. We guarantee the best pricing, even over the office super stores, with $3.50 shipping on orders over $100. We maintain complete listings by client to make the restocking process simple. Compare pricing, call 203.333.4444 or contact one of our sales associates. [Top]

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