Email Marketing Best Practices

The business world that is running the world now is obsessed with getting the most customer intelligence to further their businesses. Businesses need to know what customers need, how and what they think, what services or products are they looking for, etc. And they turn to all sorts of media blitz and campaign in order to get more customers for their business. Big businesses’ spending on TV and print ads and Internet advertising are staggering and unbelievably huge. And the advertising industry absolutely enjoys every bit of it.

One marketing technique that has not been maximized is email marketing. Compared to all the other popular marketing strategies and techniques, email marketing does not cost much. The investment will probably be on Internet subscription, minimal human resource, desktop computer and electricity bill. Hence, email marketing is deemed the most cost-effective advertising technique there is today.  

In order to get the best results from email marketing, the following lists down some of the known and proven email marketing practices which you can use as a guideline when doing your email marketing campaign.

• Create Incentives-oriented line opener for your email. This will increase the open rates of your email. Recipients are likely to open their email if they read something like, “Get an iPad free by signing up for a demo”, or “Free shipping for first order.” Don’t just do this for the sake of converting; make sure you can deliver what you promised.
• Keep your email clutter-free. Sending an email full of junk will not likely end up in a conversion.
• Highlight call-to-action above the fold. Putting your main message and call-to-action towards the end of the email will most likely result to them being ignored or not read by the recipient. Call-to-action should be repeated throughout the email the least of which is 3 times.
• Put your logo where it can be easily seen – at the upper left hand side of the email. Studies have shown that people look for the logos at this particular and specific area.  
• Create eye-catching and compelling subject lines. Like the email line opener, you can write a subject line of 30 – 50 characters with a sense of urgency. This line should give the readers an idea of what the email is all about.
• Tie your email to landing pages. Craft your email such that it will be able to link to landing pages which should have the same headline, copy and content. Use tracking tools to monitor the email and landing pages for performance.
• Use auto-responder for Opt-ins. It’s normal for recipients to forget they opted in. You need to set up auto-responder to remind them and it should be sent out in 1, 5 and 10 days after the opt-in registration. Auto-responder email should contain additional content or bonus material for opting in.  
• Make your email with a personal touch. This is where the power of email lies – the recipient needs to feel that the email was sent on a personal capacity and as such deserves a response. Use email as your way of reaching out to your customers and making them feel important.
• Timing. Know exactly when you need to send the email, which is when the recipient is around to read it right away or almost immediately. Studies and surveys showed that more people are using their lunch hour to check their email, Facebook and Twitter accounts. This should be about the right time to send your email.  

Email marketing is still a great way to generate leads and eventually more conversion prospects for your business, if done the right way. Compelling email marketing campaigns still get high success rate. People abhor getting junk and suspicious looking email marketing materials. Just follow the simple guidelines presented above to elicit chances of your marketing materials ending up in junk mailbox.

Email marketing is just part and parcel of online marketing. You have to understand online marketing as a whole to have holistic approach and have a more effective campaign. You can take a look at The Do’s and Don’ts of Online Marketing for better guidance.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Online Marketing

In this day and age of internet and advanced technology where online marketing outsourcing is just as anybody’s business, the success of any business is largely dependent on effective online marketing strategies and campaign programs. It opens up business doors to a broader consumer audience.

There are however, important considerations when it comes to acceptable online marketing for many outsource internet marketing experts. These online marketing do’s and don’ts will help differentiate good marketing practices against bad marketing techniques.

Online Marketing Do’s

• Simple and accurate website information. Your main concern is for users to be able to get the information they want from your website easily and quickly. Making your website user-friendly is key to an effective internet marketing campaigns.
• Simple and easy-to-remember domain names. If your website’s domain name is extremely long and hard to remember, gaining repeat stream of traffic to the site is not likely to happen. Imagine a secretary dictating to a business affiliate over the phone a domain name made of hardly read words - a jungle of letters and numbers.
• Learn SEO. For any online marketing outsourcing experts, effective search engine optimization strategies are a helpful lot in supplementing online marketing campaigns for implementation into the website. If your website is found by the various search engines, traffic to your site will definitely improve without spending extra for advertising.
• Have a specific and clearly defined USP. Unique Sales Positioning (USP) is like a single online ad which describes your core business. It should eliminate generic connotations to set your business apart from generic competitors. Example : Domino’s Pizza’s USP is “pizza delivered hot in 30 minutes or it’s free”. The recall factor is strong and people will easily associate the ad to the business.
• Use a short email signature. When using email marketing, use an email signature with a URL attached linking to your website. This is a great way to get traffic to a website. By keeping it short and easy to remember.
• Keep an interactive website. Your website should stimulate interaction from the users. Use online polls, surveys, etc. to get more information about your website’s audience.
• Pick your medium. Whether it’s paid search (PPC) or media buying (banners, pop-ups), choose the logical medium where your targeted prospects are.
• Blog posts. Creating blogs for your website will facilitate user interaction and will cause your website to gain traffic. Make sure to post new blogs in order to keep the users wanting for more new information to read.   

Online Marketing Don'ts

• Use Blackhat SEO techniques. As search engines regularly updates their algorithms, using these techniques will get your website penalized or banned. Online marketing outsourcing companies shun this practice.
• Over-Publicity. There’s nothing worse than a publicity overkill especially when your website is not fully ready for traffic. This is a sure way to drive users away from your website.   
• Conditional access to information. Websites requiring registration prior to gaining access to the information will definitely turn off users.
• Forget the user. Most of the time internet marketing outsourcing companies are so caught up with their campaign that they forgot the users – the people the website is designed for and the people in control of revenue.  
• Send spam and long email messages. This kind of online marketing will end up in the trash folders of email recipients or worse; people will block you. You might as well filter out people who you will send email marketing materials to.
• Slow loading and poorly designed website. Your website is your best asset. Websites that takes time to load will cause user boredom and you’re leaving the users with the option of hitting the back button.

Even conventional marketing firms are slowly moving towards online marketing and nothing beats expertise when it comes to digital marketing. However, if you’re new to the digital marketing world, you might as well want to get informed on how does its mechanism work to avoid unnecessary actions that might be detrimental to a marketing campaign.  Of course, mistakes and experience are the greatest teacher but being a bit cautious could let you go the extra mile.

Being audacious with your internet marketing campaign can be widely accepted and at the same time, may not be accepted at all. But, knowing the foundations and the rules of how marketing or advertising should be done can actually defy any hurdles that may come along the way.

On-Site Optimization Techniques

Search engine optimization requires both on-site optimization and off-site optimization techniques in order to achieve high ranking in search engines. On-page optimization refers to the many optimization elements that you have control of – keyword research and analysis, keyword density, content writing, links, text and images, etc., for the website to be properly detected and found by search engine crawlers for every search query made by users for specific relevant keywords.

On-site optimization is actually the initial step in telling Google and other search engines what the site is about. Google and search engines should know this so that when someone makes a search for a specific topic or subject, and your page has relevant content, Google can show your pages as one of the sites users can visit to get the information they need.

A good content with relevant information for the site is the best way to begin with the optimization techniques. This strategy has been proven effective in getting search engine rankings, especially for newly-launched websites. A site’s content should target the readers and not the search engines. This means, content should have useful and informative data to make it easier for both the readers and search engines to locate the website. The soonest your site is found by search engine crawlers the better ranking your site will have.  

The following are some of the on-site optimization techniques which can positively impact the rankings of your site in search engines.

• The Title Tag. The title tag should :
• describe your page content. It is important that the title and the actual content on the page match.
• have keywords placed as far left as possible
• be safely within 70 characters
• be unique for every page on the site
• be optimized with just one or two relevant keywords
• mention your geographical location (city or country) if you are targeting local customers
• should not be over-stuffed with keywords

• The Page’s URL. The URL is another important component of on-site optimization techniques. The URL should:
• have the most relevant or important keyword for specific page
• be accurately short
• preferably be static than dynamic

• Images. Images with alt tag, filename should make use of targeted keywords so that search engine crawlers can ‘read’ what the picture or image is all about and will index accordingly.

• Keyword usage. This is also known as keyword density. Repeat your keywords or key phrases for up to three times for a short to medium length page and up to six times for a longer page. It is best to write the content without worrying about the number of times the keywords or key phrases were used.  When the article or content is finished, you can count the number of times such keywords or key phrases were mentioned throughout the content. Modify accordingly – add if you have less keywords or key phrases and reduce if you have more than the acceptable number. This will really depend on the length and the content. Don’t just insert keywords or phrases for the sake of keyword density, the content will lose its sense.

• Anchor Text. This is used for easy website navigation. You are making it easier for anyone who is viewing a page in your website to visit or see other pages, services, or products. This is a form of encouraging your audience to go see what else your website can offer. Just make sure that you use variable keywords as your anchor text to avoid getting penalized. Anchor text can also serve as reference if you are pointing it to an external website.

• Use of H1, H2 and H3. Emphasizing your most important keyword with the use of H1 will tell search robots that the phrase or word is important. Your targeted or primary keyword or your page headline must use H1. H2 and H3 are used for subtopics which are made of your secondary keywords or key phrases.

• Use of Bold, Italics or Underline. Highlighting important words or phrases is essential in every article or content. It makes it a lot easier for internet users to see the most important part of the content. These styles are actually used to give your secondary or other related keywords emphasis.

• Side Links. Side links help internet users have flawless website navigation. Side links helps lessen a website’s bounce rate because it shows internet users other options they can look at. It serves as a website map which shows available pages. Other targeted keywords that describe another page can be used as side link.   

Do remember that every time there is a chance to put strong emphasis on your targeted keyword, do so. It’s sort of reiterating to search engine crawlers and your audience that your website speaks of those words or phrases. Avoid over optimization which could cause more harm than good to your website and business. Just optimize what is necessary to not look like you are manipulating spiders.

If these words or techniques sound foreign to you, you have the option to let those experienced do it for you. Internet marketing outsourcing or hiring web developers who have search engine optimization background are your best options. Entrusting your on-site optimization to people who really knows what they’re doing will greatly help in positioning your business online.

What is Redirection and How Does it Affect SEO?

For those who are non-technical, a 301 and 302 redirects may sound meaningless and strange. But for those in the business of outsource online marketing, these redirects are nothing new. By definition, “redirect” means to direct someone or something to a different place or a different route. In simpler terms, a webpage redirection means assigning a new URL to the webpage. Redirection can also mean a changed design, coding, navigation, etc.

Redirection may be prompted in any businesses’ web pages, for instance, for different reasons and the changes applied will depend on such reason. The usual reasons for redirecting a web page are:

• Broken URL or URL that is not working
• An inactive webpage or website
• A new webpage is being tested for design and functionality
• A web page is being fixed and while in that process, you want your users to make a detour to another page so as not to disrupt the user’s website experience

To be more specific, a 301 redirect, also known as a permanent redirect, is used to permanently redirect a page. This means that all ‘qualities’ of the redirected page will be passed on to the new or detour page, including PageRank, MozRank, Page Authority and Traffic Value. A 301 redirect is a complete takeover of the old site or page where the changes implemented are meant to be permanent. The old page will then be removed from Google’s index and the new one will take over and replace the old page. Majority of the internet marketing companies employ page redirects as an effort to continuously update their contents.  

On the other hand, a 302 redirect which is also known as a temporary redirect, is used to redirect your site visitors into a new webpage with the intention of bringing the redirected or old page back after a specified time or after some changes on the old page have already been completed. With this objective, a 302 redirect will maintain the ‘qualities’ of the old page and not pass on to the detour page. Because the old redirected page will be brought back to the fore, the new or detour page need not absorb the ‘qualities” of the redirected page. Any internet marketing company should be careful in using a 302 redirect correctly. Otherwise it will hurt the site’s search engine visibility.   

Effects of Redirects to SEO

Using page redirects can have negative impact mainly on search engine optimization rankings. Using a 301 redirect can slightly lower a web page’s PageRank points. Google, a popular and widely used search engine hinted that a 301 redirect may not always transfer PageRank data from one page to another. And since PageRank affects the number of pages crawled by Google on a given website, a reduce PageRank will impact the site’s visibility to users.

In order to minimize the negative effect of redirects to SEO on your website, it is important that internet marketing companies make sure that all links to their old page from directories or other websites are equally updated. This will probably be the most difficult part of implementing changes on the website because many links may end up on pages which no longer exist or have been abandoned or neglected. By ensuring that all the relevant pages are updated with the redirection changes, improved contents, and good site architecture, the site’s search engine ranking may not be hurt at all.

Why do you redirect a web page?

You redirect a web page because you do not want to commit the mistake of having search engines index the page that no longer exists or the page that is under construction. Broken links are your worst enemies in pulling your ranking down. One wrong move could be very detrimental to a website. You do not only appear as scam to robots but to humans as well. You will lose your credibility and the chance of getting visited by the same user is synonymous to impossible.

A good SEO company is cautious in committing redirection mistakes because the harm it may cause a business may not be controlled and could be fatal.