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Are you ready to start an email campaign? If you’re new to email marketing, or if you’re starting a new type of campaign, there are some things you should consider before you get started. Email marketing can be a great way to get messages in front of your market, drive traffic to your site and increase sales. As you start your campaign, consider the following guidelines.

Set Some Goals

First, write down your goals. Why are you running an email campaign? Your goal should outline what you hope to accomplish with your campaign. Ideally, the goal for your email campaign aligns with one of your overall business goals. If you aren’t sure why you are emailing your market to begin with, your email won’t benefit your business.

As you design your campaign, keep your goals in mind. Then, when your campaign is over, revisit your goals and see if you met them. If you didn’t, find out why you didn’t and find ways you can be more successful with future email marketing campaigns.

Perfect Your Message

After you have defined your goal, you can perfect the message you use in your email. The message should be written with your market in mind and should help you achieve your goal. The best email campaigns have messages that capture the audience’s attention and include a call to action.

Remember that most people will read your email’s subject line first. If the subject line is interesting and promises value, people will be more likely to open and read your email.

Find an Email Marketing Service Provider

An email marketing service provider (ESP) will allow you to carry out the technical aspects of your campaign. There are several options available, so look for one that provides all the features your company needs.

Try to think about your long-term needs as you choose an ESP. The logistics of executing campaigns will be easier to handle if you find a provider you like and then stick with the same one.

Plan for Future Campaigns and Emails

As you plan your email marketing campaign, look at it as part of a larger strategy. Think about your other marketing tactics and goals as well as what you might want to do with future email campaigns. Many businesses use email marketing as a way to support other tactics, like special offers or new product launches. If you can see the bigger picture, you can find ways your email will fit into future plans. For example, you could use this campaign to build a hype about a new product, and then announce the new product in a future email campaign.

These email marketing tips can help you get started with your first campaign or enhance the way you already run email campaigns at your business. The next time you set up a campaign, use these guidelines to help you stay focused and be successful.

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Google’s Disavow tool has been around for a few years, allowing businesses to tell Google that spammy links should not affect a site’s page rank. The idea behind the tool is to allow site owners and search engine optimisation experts to have more control over the links that point to their websites.

If your business uses SEO, you understand how important links to your website are. These links help Google understand what your site is about and how legitimate it is. As Google analyzes things like these links and your site’s content, it ranks it in its search results. If the links to your website are spammy or were acquired through link purchasing methods or other black-hat tactics, they will harm your site’s rankings.

Link-building campaigns are a popular SEO tool, but Google is making more of an effort to penalize sites that use link building in inappropriate ways. Paid links or spam are both link-building techniques that will harm your site’s rankings.

This is where Google’s Disavow tool, which is part of Google’s Webmaster Tools, comes into play. This tool allows your business to tell Google that these links should not be associated with your website. Google is very clear that site owners should do all they can to remove illegitimate links before they turn to the Disavow tool.

How can you remove unwanted links? There are a few options:

• Ask the site owner to remove the link.
• Delete websites you own that are spammy or low quality.
• End paid link campaigns, asking sellers to remove your links.
• Remove content with links that you published on low-quality sites.

After you have tried to remove the links yourself, you can use the Disavow tool. Google warns site owners to use the tool carefully. If you use it incorrectly or make a mistake, you risk harming your site’s search rankings.

Google also says that most websites won’t need to use the tool, since Google works to determine which links are illegitimate when assigning page rank, without any help from site owners. However, if your business’ site has lots of illegitimate links to it that are negatively affecting its rankings, the Disavow tool can help.

The Link Disavow Process

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Google’s support page has detailed instructions on how to use the Disavow tool. You will need to make sure you are using Google’s Webmaster Tools for your site before you can use the tool.

Before you can disavow any links, you need to download a list of links that point to your website. To do this, login into Webmaster Tools, click on the site that has negative links to it, choose “Traffic” and then “Links to your Site.” Then click on “Who Links the Most” and then “More.” Here you can download the links to your site and decide which ones should be disavowed. Then you can visit the Disavow tool page to upload the links that you want to disavow.

This tool can help your business dissociate itself from bad links that are harming your page’s rankings. While it should be used carefully, it can help your site recover from illegitimate or spammy links.

A study by Econsultancy found that 94 percent of businesses believe that personalisation is important in online marketing. But, interestingly, a survey by Adobe found that 42 percent of consumers were “neutral” about the importance of personalised service and product recommendations.

Big businesses like Amazon often include personalised recommendations as site visitors browse products and make purchases. This strategy has permeated online marketing, and now all kinds of businesses work to create personalised experiences through their marking tactics.

The survey doesn’t stop there. It goes on to reveal more about how consumers feel about personalised marketing tactics. The findings also show that 33 percent of survey takers said they feel that marketing personalisation is “somewhat” or “very valuable.” The research shows that 26 percent of people felt like the personalisations are “not very” or “not at all valuable.”

These findings show that even though businesses think that making online marketing tactics personal for each potential customer is an important part of their marketing strategy, consumers don’t place very much value on the results. Only a small portion of people feel that the personalised tactics are valuable.

Personalised product recommendations are a popular maketing tactic. Image source.

Does Your Business use Personalised Tactics?

Does your business use personalised marketing tactics in an effort to persuade potential customers? Whether you use this approach on your website or through other online marketing tactics, these statistics may make you second guess your strategies.

Current marketing trends are leading businesses to create focused and targeted campaigns in ways they have never done before. Research and social media data can give your business incredible insight into who your market is and what is likely to resonate with your potential customers.

While this survey may seem daunting and even cause marketers to second guess the personalised-marketing trend, the fact remains that a third of the people who took the survey feel that personalised tactics are at least somewhat valuable. This is still a significant portion of your market, and shouldn’t be overlooked.

It’s also important to keep in mind that when consumers respond to surveys, they aren’t always aware of what kinds of marketing tactics have an influence over their actions and purchases. While the results of these studies do provide important information about how consumers view marketing tactics, businesses should keep in mind that there are several variables, including peoples’ imperfect memories, which can influence the results.

What to do Now

Understanding general statistics like these can help you shape your marketing efforts. While it wouldn’t be wise to base your entire marketing plan off of the results of one, general study, the findings should be taken into consideration. The studies done by Econsultancy and Adobe can remind businesses that personalised marketing may not be as powerful as they think and that other digital marketing strategies are still valuable ways to promote a product or service.

Personalised digital marketing is still an important part of marketing, but businesses shouldn’t depend on these tactics. Things like social media marketing, websites, blogs, paid ads, and search engine optimisation can work in conjunction with personalised marketing tactics to form a comprehensive marketing strategy.

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If you’ve ever been in the position of trying to persuade the management at your business to use social media marketing, you understand the challenges it entails. Some businesses that have relied on traditional marketing tactics may feel that there is no need to try new tactics.

Managers at these businesses have successfully grown their business through traditional marketing, and may not understand the need to incorporate social media into their marketing strategies. So how do you persuade them that social media marketing will benefit their business and the bottom line?

Provide Numbers and Facts

If you are already using social media at your business, prove its worth by showing numbers and facts. Managers like to see evidence that strategies are working, and it can be hard to prove that social media has an effect on the business. Collect data that illustrates benefits like site traffic, product sales and increased awareness.

If you aren’t using social media, look for general statistics and case studies and find ways to apply them to your business. Market studies on how your markets use social media can also be helpful in proving how social media marketing can benefit your business.

Set Measurable Goals and Objectives

When you propose social media marketing plans to your manager, come with measurable goals and some specific objectives. Explain very clearly what social media can help you accomplish, how you will use it and then how you will measure the results.

Measurable goals have deadlines and outline how success will be measured. For example, one of your goals could be: “In six months, our social media efforts will increase our site’s traffic by 10 percent.” This goal is specific and measurable. An objective to help you reach this goal could include plans to share links to your website on a regular basis through social media.

Share What People are Saying About Your Brand

Even if your business isn’t already using social media, there is a chance that your market is already talking about your brand on social media. Do some research to find out what is being said, whether it is positive or negative conversations, and then come up with a plan to join or sway that conversation. When your management sees that your market is already talking about your business, they may feel it is important to add the brand’s voice to the conversation.

Present a Budget

Advertising and marketing can be expensive, so the lure of relatively inexpensive social media marketing can help you persuade your management. Social media marketing is by no means free, but it is substantially more affordable than things like television spots, billboards and print ads. Present a social media budget and compare it with your business’ current marketing budget. The idea here is to show your manager how he or she can get big benefits for a smaller investment. A side benefit of this approach is that it can help management feel that trying social media marketing won’t be expense, so it will be worth a trial run.

Convincing your management to invest time and other resources into social media marketing can be challenging. But, by doing some research and presenting some solid facts and goals to your manager, you can prove social media’s worth.

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There are literally dozens of ways to drive traffic to your website. If your business currently uses a search engine optimisation campaign, you are probably consonantly trying new tactics to see what will influence your traffic report numbers.

There are also tactics outside of the realm of SEO that can help you drive traffic. Creative strategies and campaigns not only increase your site’s traffic, but can also help you build your brand and send marketing messages to your potential customers.

Offer Free Resources

People love free resources. You can drive traffic to your site by offering things like downloads, informational articles, lists, or any other freebie that would appeal to your market. Keep in mind that to continue to benefit from this tactic, you may need to update your free offer every so often.

Hold a Contest

Holding a contest may seem like an over-used option, but it’s one that works. The trick to using this strategy to build traffic is to make sure visiting your site is necessary for participation. For example, maybe the entry form is on your website or maybe people need to visit your site to vote on a winner. You can use contests creatively to get the word out about your business and drive more traffic and new visitors to your site.

Host an Expert

Hosting an expert on your website through a podcast, interview, guest blog post or panel discussion is a great way to bring traffic to your site. Not only will you be adding a new voice to your blog, but you’ll also be tapping into a whole new audience. If someone is interviewed for your site, chances are that he will promote the post to his own readers, encouraging them to visit your site.

Join Communities

Joining communities is another way to market your website to a new audience. Things like forums and blogs are great places to join conversations and leave a link back to your website. When you do this, make sure the comment you leave is relevant to the conversation and the link you leave provides some value. For example, you may want to link back to one of your own blog posts or a specific page on your site, rather than the home page.

Guest blogging can also help you attract new readers and get more traffic. Look for guest posting opportunities on blogs that people in your target market frequently visit, so the traffic you gain will be more valuable.

Create a Community

Consider building your own community on your website to attract returning readers and new visitors. You could create your own forum or simply focus on creating better and more engaging blog posts. Creating a space where people can talk about the industry and converse with others can help you get more traffic. People will want to join the community and regular readers will visit your site often and tell their friends about the community.

Creatively increasing traffic to your website can help you build your audience, reach your target market and stand out from the crowd. People are often overwhelmed by the amount of content available online, so using creative strategies can be a refreshing way to grab your market’s attention.

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Using social media to broadcast live events, like conferences, new product unveilings and trainings, is almost expected by some markets and in some industries. For example, big Apple fans recently tuned into live blogs and video footage that covered the Worldwide Developers Conference. Industry conferences often encourage attendees to use specific hashtags while they tweet about the event as it is happening.

Would your business benefit from live social media coverage? Even if your company isn’t as big as Apple, your market may respond to this type of social media use. If you hold events and if you have a social media following that has a vested interest in these events, live social media broadcasting could help your business.

If you’ve already built a social media presence and already have a strong following, how do you take the next step and begin using social media for live events?

Recognize the Opportunity

First, recognize when an event lends itself to social media broadcasting. Remember your goal of broadcasting events and as your business hosts or participates in events, identify which ones should be broadcast. Things like new product reveals and events that your market is invited to are great for social media broadcasting.

Make sure the event you want to broadcast appeals to your social media audience or to a market that uses social media. If your market isn’t interested in the event, or isn’t likely to tune in on social media, broadcasting the event won’t be very beneficial.

Choose the Right Channels

The social media sites you use to broadcast your event will depend on the event itself and your market. Video broadcasting is great for things like conferences and showing off new products. Twitter can work for these kinds of events as well as events that are held over several days. If your event is especially visual, consider using Instagram.

Make sure you already have a presence on the site you choose. This will help you get more engagement and will help you reach a larger portion of your social media audience.

Generate Buzz and Encourage People to Tune In

Several weeks before your event starts, begin publicizing the fact that you will be broadcasting it on social media. Do this through your social media accounts and other marketing tactics where appropriate. Get your market excited about the event and make sure people understand how they can follow the event and participate through social media.

Create Context

As you broadcast your event, make sure your followers understand what they are looking at or reading. Make it very clear that the updates, pictures and video clips are from the event. You can do this with the words you use, by using hashtags or by setting up a specific page or channel (like a YouTube channel or a Twitter account) for the event.

Be Consistent

If you choose to broadcast an event through social media, be consistent with it. Post through the entire event and make it easy for your market to follow along. There are few things more frustrating than incomplete broadcasts. If, for example, you post a few pictures or a few tweets at the beginning of the event, but then suddenly go quiet, you will frustrate your audience and harm your reputation and brand image. This approach also won’t hold your market’s attention, so broadcasting your event won’t benefit your business.

Broadcasting events through social media is an excellent way to raise awareness of your brand, connect with your market, involve your social media followers and promote your products. These tips can help you use your social media accounts wisely so you can successful broadcast your next event.

If you manage a Google+ business page, you know that historically the site hasn’t offered much by way of management and measurement tools. But, Google has just unveiled a new dashboard that makes it possible for page managers to measure some basic analytics for Google+ and manage their information across all of Google’s products.

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One-Stop Updating

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of the new dashboard is the ability for businesses to manage their information across several of Google’s products all from one place. The new dashboard ties together tools like Google+, Google Maps and Search.

From the dashboard, managers can update business addresses and contact information, access analytics and even post to Google+, all from one place. Users can also see Google+ notifications, upload photos and start Hangouts from the dashboard.

If you use the new dashboard, you’ll also be able to manage your AdWords Express and Google Offers accounts from the same place. You’ll be able to access your information and look at statistics relating to your campaigns so you can strategically use these tools.

The dashboard will even show you the top locations where people search for driving locations to your business, so you can better understand where your customers are and how to cater to their needs and reach them through marketing.

Basic Google+ Analytics

By verifying your business, you can also access some analytical information about your business’ Google+ account from the dashboard. You’ll be able to see how many followers you have, when you last posted to your page and how people are interacting with your posts, among other pieces of information.

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Being able to measure how your business is doing on Google+ is a vital part of successful social media marketing. If you aren’t sure how your posts are being received, or what kinds of content captures your market’s attention, how will you know how to get the most out of your account? These statistics can help you use Google+ to your benefit.

Easy Access to Google+ Sharing Tools

The dashboard also has a tab called “For Your Site” that has links to things like +1 buttons and badges so you can incorporate your Google+ account into your website. These tools will make it easier for your audience to share your content on Google+, which can help you get the word out about your business.

While some of the tools and information available on the new dashboard have been available to users before, this is the first time they have all been easily accessible from the same place. The dashboard makes it possible for business to manage their information across several Google products all from one place, making the task easier and ensuring consistency.

If you use Google+, you can login into your account and access the dashboard from the menu on the left side of the page. From there, you can verify your business and access all the features the new dashboard has to offer.

Facebook currently offers marketers 27 different ad unit options, a number that is overwhelming and sometimes includes redundant options. In an effort to simplify the ad creation process, Facebook has announced that it will change its offerings over the next several months to reduce the total number of options to less than half of what it offers now.

The new options, which Facebook says it has created in response to feedback from marketers, will make the social media site’s ad offerings much simpler. Among the changes, businesses can look forward to:

Eliminated Redundancies

Several of the current ad options overlap and accomplish the same thing. This is unnecessary and can make Facebook advertising more complicated than it needs to be, so the update will remove these redundancies.

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This change should help marketers wade through the ad-creation process and can make choosing the right ad for your business easier. Instead of wasting time comparing ad units only to find that some overlap, businesses will now be able to quickly choose the ad that is best for their campaigns.

Best of Sponsored Stories in All Ads

Now marketers will no longer need to buy ads and sponsored stories. With the new system, businesses can simply create a Page post photo ad and Facebook will automatically use social context to help the ad be more successful. Facebook says that research from Datalogix, comScore and Nielsen reveal that social context can make online ads more effective, so this update is good news for businesses.

More Consistent Appearance

Currently, Facebook’s ads each have a slightly different look. With the new system, all ads will fit an overall theme and have the same visual elements. Facebook says this will be beneficial to businesses as they test different ads and for users as Facebook becomes more visually appealing.

According to a post on Facebook’s newsroom, the social network’s goal is to build a system that will suggest ad tools based on what marketers say they want their ads to achieve. This new type of advertising system could help businesses find the right ads for their campaigns, which will help them be more successful in marketing to their target audiences.

Facebook advertising is a major part of social media marketing for many businesses. If your business uses these ads, the coming changes could help you focus your advertising efforts and simplify the way you create Facebook ads.

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Even if you are able to generate traffic to your lead generation form, and even if you are able to persuade people to buy your product, you won’t gain any customers if your site visitors don’t feel confident and safe in giving you their personal information. Addresses, phone numbers and even email addresses are details some people hesitate to freely give out. So how can you make sure your customers feel safe enough to fill out your forms?

Build a Quality Website

People can tell when a website is spammy, and therefore not trustworthy. Unorganized layout, clashing colors, poorly written copy and flashy, gimmicky features can all make your site visitors feel uneasy about giving you their contact information. These elements make people feel like they are subscribing to a spam list.

If you create a quality website that tells people that your business is professional, people will trust your lead forms. They will be much more likely to give you their contact information if they feel like they are working with a professional organization.

Tell Subscribers What Their Information will be Used For

When people don’t know what their email addresses and phone numbers will be used for they are very hesitant to fill out lead forms. Put your customers at ease by telling them exactly what you will do with their contact information. For example, explain that they will receive a monthly email newsletter, or weekly deals through text messaging, or a representative will call them to talk about finding the right product for their needs. No matter what your lead form is for, make it clear what you will use a person’s contact information for.

Give an Incentive for Submitting Forms

In general, people will not submit a lead form that asks for personal information without an incentive. Your readers need a reason to submit their email addresses. Some good incentives include a free download, discounts, or notifications of new product launches.

The incentive you use will depend on your business and your market. Put yourself in your potential customers’ shoes and think of things that would appeal to them. What would entice them to submit your lead form?

Allow Subscribers to make a Choice

Giving people options as they submit your lead form can make them feel like they are in control and aren’t helplessly submitting their contact information for you to do anything you want with. Simple options like letting subscribers choose if they want to receive monthly or weekly emails or whether or not they want to receive alerts for new products puts the customer in control and makes him feel confident in submitting his information.

Make Customer Support Easy to Find

Businesses that are easy to contact and that have customer support options that are easy to find on their websites look more trustworthy and professional. This practice can make your readers feel more confident because they know there is someone they can speak to if they have a problem with their product, service or subscription.

Making your site visitors feel confident and safe in submitting their contact information in your lead forms can help you increase your mailing list or even your sales, benefitting your business in numerous ways.

Gmail’s new inbox system. Image source

Google has unrolled a new inbox that could have an effect on the way businesses do email marketing. The new inbox is available on the web and on the Gmail mobile app, but it is optional. Users can continue to use their traditional inboxes if they choose to.

What the New Inbox Includes

The new inbox divides your inbox into five separate inboxes. As mail comes in, Gmail sorts it and places it in one of five tabs: Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates or Forums. Google determines where a message belongs by looking at who the sender is. You can teach Google how to sort your mail if you find something in one of your inboxes that you want to appear somewhere else by dragging it into the correct tab.

Users can login to their Gmail account on a desktop to set up the inboxes, choosing which ones they want to use. The inboxes will also appear on the mobile app and sync with the desktop inboxes. If you use the mobile app, you can also choose to only receive notifications for mail that comes into the Primary inbox, instead of receiving a notification for each incoming message.

By organizing mail as it comes in, Gmail is making it easier for users to quickly see important messages and decide when to read and respond to messages that come from newsletter subscriptions, social media sites and other sites.

The new inbox may reflect how many people feel: overwhelmed with the sheer amount of emails and email updates they receive on a daily basis. People need a new way to wade though their emails to find the most important ones.

The new inboxes on Gmail’s mobile app. Image source

What Businesses Need to Consider

If your business uses any form of email marketing, you are already used to the challenges that come with the medium: enticing users to open your messages, driving traffic through email messages and avoiding being marked as a spammer. If your customers use this new inbox, you may be facing a new challenge: overcoming the fact that your messages may not land in your customers’ Primary inbox. Depending on the settings your customers have, they may not receive new mail notifications for your messages.

Your subscribers may not read your message right away, and they may even delete the contents of an entire tab without even reading your emails. In short, the new inbox layout makes it easier for your emails to slip through the cracks.

Of course, all of your customers won’t be using the new feature, but it’s likely that a number of them will, considering how popular Gmail is. So how do you overcome these potential problems?

One way to overcome this challenge is to create content that is so irresistible that your customers won’t want to miss your emails. You can do this by offering exclusive deals or announcing new information to your subscribers before you announce it to your other markets. Creating a sense of urgency is not a new email marketing tactic, but it is one that can help you overcome the challenge of reaching subscribers through Gmail’s new inbox.

Another way you can avoid the risk of your subscribers missing your emails is to ask them to include your mail in their Primary inbox. You could include a note at the end of your newsletter telling readers that if they move your message to their Primary inbox, future emails from you will appear there so they won’t miss important updates or good deals.

The new Gmail inbox redefines the way many people receive and sort their email, and this new process could become the norm with other email services.

With the new feature comes some new challenges for email marketers. However, by continuing to focus on creating valuable content, making sure subscribers see the value in your emails, and asking your subscribers to move your emails to their Primary inbox, your business can continue to execute successful email marketing campaigns.