Tag Archives: marketing plan

Richard Vanderhurst

Business Need A Marketing Push? Try These Great Tips

What aspects of mobile marketing are you familiar with? Have you developed a marketing strategy? If you do, do you want to improve it? Is your current strategy working effectively for your business, or is it hindering progress? Is your marketing plan being implemented effectively? If you need mobile marketing answers, take a look at the following tips.

Do not forget to use SEO with your sites that are designed for your mobile users. Google is the most popular mobile browser, so start there when you begin to optimize mobile browsers.

Make sure your mobile content is viewable on multiple mobile platforms. It’s important to make sure that your campaign is equally compatible across all of them. A compatible script that works across multiple platforms will benefit your campaign the most.

Make sure your emails are mobile friendly to ensure that they will be effective in reaching as many of your customers as possible. Allow them to click on phone numbers (instead of links), and make sure your pages look great on the mobile devices for any links you do include. It is now very common for users to check email from mobile devices, so remember this when you format email messages.

If you are looking for innovative ways to improve your bottom line, mobile marketing is the way to go. It allows you to tap in to the millions of potential customers that communicate primarily with their phones. Both of these areas are ideal starting points for expanding your mobile marketing campaign. Be visible to your target market.

When marketing for mobile phones make sure that the message you send are short and simple. Make sure customers know what your message is, so they absorb it and respond.

Your mobile marketing campaign should be easy to use and simple. Always consider that a mobile user might be short on time, and their devices are not conducive to completing long, drawn-out forms. Make it easy to add oneself to your mailing list.

Always perform usability tests before going live with your message. If your customers can’t even see what you send them, you’re sunk. Ask your friends if you can send them tests so you can get feedback on usability.

Be relevant with your campaign. Don’t forget the purpose of your actions when you start mobile marketing. Each communication you have with your customer should be directed at promoting your business through the presentation of new information or opportunities for your customers or potential customers. If you provide things they desire and require, they will utilize your business.

By implementing the use of QR codes, you can broaden your customer base as you offer easily accessible information to customers. For sharing coupons, promotions and/or discounts, nothing is better than QR codes. QR codes can be captured with a cell phone. As you begin using these codes, you will be able to easily provide your customers with relevant information about your company and products.

When creating a mobile marketing campaign you must focus on keeping your existing customers as opposed to gaining new clients. Your current customers will take much more kindly to receiving product updates and text messages than new customers. Most possible new customers will see your messages as spam.

Take the time to promote your business on all the social networking sites. You want your business to be seen. Stick to the basics, and then grow your marketing strategies from there. Use Foursquare and Facebook as a bare minimum for advertisement of your business.

Learn as much as you can about your intended recipients so you can target what will work. This is a good way to make sure your campaign will actually be something the recipient is interested in reading.

Be clear about what you want to accomplish with mobile marketing. Starting off with definite goals will help you plan and build your campaigns. Do you want to increase your sales from your existing customer base, or do you want to interact with them and retain customers?

If you are using SMS marketing you need to be honest with your customers about how often you will text them. Text messages can become annoying due to notifications. You can create a privacy issue. Make sure your customers have signed up for the service so they do not feel annoyed and be honest. By keeping your promises, you will help to build trust with your customers.

Take the time to learn about the people you’re marketing to. Before you make assumptions and put a lot of money into mobile marketing efforts, make sure you analyze your audience and their preferences. Find out how much your customers use their cell phones. Which OS do they use on their phones? Knowing as much as possible about your prospective customers will increase your ability to reach them successfully with your marketing message.

Use your standard website to your advantage. It’s very helpful to advertise mobile sites and apps from a popular traditional website. Customers can view how to sync with you when they are away from the office once they visit your website.

Before your company decides on creating their own mobile app, make sure it’s something that is needed by your customers. If your app is something dumb or just duplicate information that could be found on your website, it’s just going to languish on the app store, unloved.

It’s important to promote your mobile marketing as much as possible, including in all social media markets. Make sure you put ads on Facebook and on Twitter, and in your actual website. This allows your followers plenty of chances register for offers, given the increased visibility of your campaign.

You can develop a mobile application as a part of your mobile marketing plan. The app should contain pertinent information about your niche, and should be set up in a manner that entices people to want it on their phones. Apps that provide helpful information and tips are very popular. You can use your app as a lead-generation tool for other products, or sell the app directly for profit.

Are you more informed when it comes to mobile marketing? Do you have a new plan or a better plan now? Can you now use things that work with your business? Do you know how to properly apply your plan? With any luck, the tips above should have created better answers.

Richard Vanderhurst

Social Media Marketing Basics To Maximize Your Profits

At one point in time, many businesses viewed the world of social media as a playing ground for kids. Those days are long gone. In today’s society, social media sites provide a valuable tool for marketing and branding any business. With such a level of importance placed on these sites, it is equally important to make your social media marketing plan an effective one. In this article we will give you a few tips for starting out right.

If you have followers on Twitter, follow those people back. Do not give off the impression you cannot be bothered, when your friends and customers choose to follow you. People want to know that a company they deal with cares about their customers, and is friendly. When you follow back from your Twitter account, people will have more confidence in your site, and it takes just a moment to do.

Where is your target audience? Go to them. Is your site about home improvement? Make comments on sites that feature home improvement products. Is your blog about pets? Leave comments on popular pet-related sites. By doing this, you can quickly and effectively build up a followers’ list.

Try the following tip for marketing effectively on social media sites. Focus your energy on the big sites, such as Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter. If you target your efforts, sharply tailored initiatives can be crafted, increasing your chances of expanding your business and getting more sales.

Update the content on your social media sites often. It is easier to post frequently if you do so on a set schedule. If your content remains unchanged for an extended period of time, your traffic will decrease dramatically. Give yourself reminders so you know what you must do.

Remember your past marketing efforts as well as those of your competitors. Use the lessons you have learned here, good or bad, to make your marketing plan solid and more likely to succeed in the future. If you do this, you’ll know what works and doesn’t work whenever you attempt to launch your campaign.

You can learn a lot by interacting with various social media site communities. Be sure you see the members of these communities as people, sources of information, and perhaps as potential customers. Connect with members of communities by paying attention to their likes, dislikes and habits.

Use the website YouTube to promote your blog. Provide links to your official sites in the description, as well as in the video itself. Don’t forget to include keywords that will make it more likely that people looking for products in your niche will find your video. Add relevant keywords to video tags as well as descriptions.

Use eye catching headlines to get readers to read your content. You should ask a question they may be interested in. Use interest-piquing words like “special” or “amazing”. Well written headlines will pique visitors interest and cause them to read the information.

On your social media pages, you have to interact with the visitors to the site. You will quickly lose participants in your social media efforts if the conversation is not ongoing or reciprocal. If a person has taken the time to make a comment, then show them respect by replying.

Keep in mind that you need to be active in your social media marketing efforts. In order to achieve success, you must be social! With no interaction or activity, your marketing campaign will become boring. Consider linking a blog to your social media sites so that new information is constantly available for your followers.

Hosting employee blogs on your business website is one of the many effective social media marketing strategies that you can employ. This allows your customers to get an insight into your company. They’ll meet the people who work there, learn more about your company’s beliefs and standards, and know how the product gets from it’s raw form to their home. Giving customers an inside look at your business workings is one way to build their trust in you and your products.

YouTube can make a great launchpad for your business’s other online presences. Every day, millions of people in all age groups peruse this media-rich site. Set up your profile for YouTube correctly in order to maximize your advantages. Describe your business well, and add links to your website or blog within your videos and profile.

When you create your Twitter screen name, use one that is relevant to your niche and will stick in people’s mind. Numbers aren’t usually good to include in handles, because they are difficult to remember and aren’t that distinctive.

If you run a blog for your business, allow readers to retweet the content easily via a button included with each posting. This will make it easier for your readers to Tweet about your blog. This allows your blog to reach an even larger number of people.

Don’t use your personal Facebook account to promote your business. You do not need your customers looking at any games or personal activities you may do on social media. You should also use different names for each page to ensure that customers don’t accidentally access your personal page when looking for your professional profile.

If you’re unsure as to what topic you should be writing about, consider starting a poll. The people who follow you will have the choice to select things that are relevant to the industry or even add suggestions by their communication in your polls. This exercise should spawn a myriad of ideas for interesting content.

Update your social media pages often to increase interest. If you’ve got big product development plans, your followers may expect more updates from you. However, if you’re finding it hard to think of top quality content, you may want to think about posting less.

Social media marketing is the new and upcoming thing that your business should use. It can be utilized to brand your products or services and market them to millions of people. Read on to find some tips which will give you a basic knowledge of what it takes to market your company online through social media.

Richard Vanderhurst

Useful Tips To Market Your Business Through Social Media Networks

It has always been tricky to captivate and maintain an audience on the Internet. Although there are a number of ways to capture an audience, there is one that has gained a lot of attention over the years. Through social media, it is possible to reach out to the masses, no matter how big or small the operation. The information included here will help you figure out how to use it in the most efficient way possible.

If you feel stumped about your next topic, solicit opinions. Present your friends and followers with several choices relative to your industry, and ask them to make suggestions. Not to mention that you can take the advice and the results of the poll and incorporate this stuff into your network.

When you write a blog for your business, add visual interest to the content. Pictures and videos help to break up chunks of text. Add graphics, videos, pictures or borders to make the page more interesting. You won’t need to go crazy here and post a bunch of nonsense that clutters up your site. You just need to give visitors something to look at and to enjoy.

It’s best to allow your visitors to subscribe to your website with ease. This way, you can send many of your readers important info though emails. Email marketing is a bit old in comparison to the newer social media marketing, but emails can remind your viewers to go to your social networks.

Holidays may mean more profit, but you still need to keep your focus on the customers. If you give them increased attention during this stressful time, you will gain customer loyalty. Make sure you always have back up plans in your arsenal and approach the season with fun on mind. You will see your customers anticipating this shift with joy.

Do your research on the market you wish to target through social media when you are looking for information relating to your current or future products. Social media followers often enjoy letting you know what they think because this makes them feel like they have a voice that can make a difference. These people are a great source of free information about what demand exists for a particular product.

Connect social media profiles with your website. This is easy to do by including “share” buttons on your website that will allow your main website visitors to share your content on their social media profiles. Try including these buttons anywhere you can. Try to link to blog posts and RSS feeds and that will make the customers have an easier time sharing your content.

Think about connecting your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. You will increase the number of professional contacts that you can follow and allow them to follow back easily. This makes your posts appear more polished, which then helps to attract a more professional following. Just go to the main site for LinkedIn and install the application for LinkedIn Tweets.

Make your credentials as an expert well known by offering help through social media, as well as other online outlets. Having this kind of clout can help you bring in a lot more business. Answer online questions in a professional, yet friendly tone. By being helpful to others, you will drive business to your own website.

Remember the steps you, as well as others, have taken before. Remember the included lessons and watch your business grow and your profits increase with the help of social media. Learn from your mistakes and keep your marketing plan up-to-date by following the latest innovations.

If you want optimal results from your marketing through social media, find the demographic information available about your page users and then use that data. If you can establish that those people accessing your site are part of a specific demographic group, you will be able to design advertisements to specifically target them.

Be sure people can subscribe to your blog easily. Do not put the subscribe button in a spot where people may not notice it. Instead, place it in a visible spot that makes it easy for fans to sign up. Avoid using a lot of fancy add-ons that take an excessive amount of time to load.

The shorter you make your posts, the more effective they will be as marketing devices. Shorter messages are less likely to bore the reader, and more likely to lodge in their mind and get shared with others. Use images wisely to break up large blocks of text or eliminate the need for some copy altogether.

Give your customers an easy way to add reviews on your website or Facebook profile. Your readers will be able to write reviews of your products and share their opinion. Go through these reviews and get rid of the negative ones. It’s easy to encourage users to add reviews by offering a contest or implementing some other promotion.

A brand related photo contest can be an effective strategy to increase excitement about your product among your followers. The prize can go to the customer who enters the most creative picture that features your brand. Inevitably, entrants will also share their photos on their networking pages, increasing the visibility of your brand twofold.

Be prepared for a certain amount of negative feedback. You can also use your social media pages to improve customer relations, whether people are happy or complaining. These remarks should be dealt with quickly to show you care about your customers.

If your business is a small one, or one that is run from your home, avoid sending out an automated version of yourself on the social media websites. If you use an auto respond, it may create a bad reputation for your company. A lot of the time, these auto-responders send out messages that may be seen as being spam. This will decrease your amount of followers.

Common adds and vapid articles are no longer the way to make your marketing plan a winner. All sorts of media which entertains people can be used to attract a big audience in very quick order. The business owner still carries the responsibility of supplying quality products and services.

Richard Vanderhurst

Give Internet Marketing A Try With Our Help

Marketing through the Internet can be a lucrative way of doing business. There are many different avenues one can pursue to tailor marketing strategies directly to your business for optimal success. This can be challenging for you if you are a newcomer and do not have any idea where to begin. The following tips can help you be prepared for these challenges.

Make sure to have your signature, which includes a link for your site, at the bottom of everything that you write online. If you add your link to your forum signature, it will appear at the end of every post you make. Add the link to your email signatures. This is a nearly subliminal way to advertise your website to the people you come across on the Internet. It could boost your search rankings as well. Above the link, type a captivating line that encourages them to click on the link.

To turn your visitors into customers, give them an easy content page that will show them how good the product is, and what it will do for them – a simple video works great. This measure will assist them to feel more informed regarding the purchase they are considering. A well written and interesting content page about your product will entice your potential customer to make a purchase without any high pressure sales tactics.

You are already aware of what will make you the most money if you have a strong marketing plan. As for your next step, you should use the products as flagpoles to get more sales. Point out and promote the most effective complementary products and accessories for those good-selling items. These complementary products are sold through your more popular products and may not require the same amount of advertising as completely unrelated products.

You should be geared towards establishing more internet marketing when you begin internet marketing campaigns. This may seem crazy, but it is essential to have customers find you, buy from you, and then come back to your site.

Part of operating a successful online business is ongoing market research on your competitors. You can identify areas that need improvement by exploring other websites in your industry. If you see that your competition is not providing certain services on their websites, offer the same services on your site so that your customers will choose you over your competition.

For instance, if you provide home goods, consider joining forces with a business that sells baby products, and give their customers a price break. This way, you can get discounts for your customers and offer discounts to your partner’s customers.

It’s a great idea to customize your site’s 500 error page and make it a little more user-friendly. Visitors will see this page when something goes haywire with your site’s automated database code. A typical error page tells the viewer that the connection has simply timed out. There are much better ways to inform users that you know about an issue and are trying to fix it.

One way to become an authority or subject-matter expert is to compile a relevant glossary on your website. This will help everyone from customers to competitors alike. People doing a search for those terms will be more likely to come to your website. You will get more traffic and be considered a reference.

One of the most promising ways to market your services and products is to identify a profitable niche. You cannot sell items to people unless you know what it is that they want. The point is, you need to design your site and focus your marketing efforts towards the people who are most likely going to buy from you. So find something that you enjoy and it will be easy to generate profits from.

Keep detailed records of your statistics. It could be traffic, refunds, sales, referrals, or anything else that can be measured on your website. Using good accounting skills to assemble statistics enables you to see your business in full, and identify both what is working and what may need tweaking in your marketing plan.

One terrific tool for internet marketing is putting a spot on your website where visitors can post reviews. Customers like to post their actual experiences with your products and these can provide you with new sales, too.

Use descriptive language so your customers create a mental relationship with the product. Doing so will help to create brand recognition. Use several adjectives to create an emotion or a mental picture.

When you send your customers an email, be sure it includes a rousing call to action. These actions could be anything from visiting your website to purchasing a product from you. Once your customers do something you suggest, you can cross-reference the marketing results by checking how many customers visited your website or purchased your product.

Include a guarantee to your customers as a tactic in your Internet marketing plan. People will feel much safer trying your products, and it helps your company’s reputation that it will stand behind what it sells. Customers will be more likely to trust you if you take all the risk out of their purchases.

People tend to show respect for authority in business. Of course, you can be this authority figure if you speak on your product in an informative, honest and compelling way. You have every right to identify yourself as the president or CEO of your firm.

Be sure to include several special choices on your check out pages for orders. Customers might add specified, on-sale products to their final order. This will make the customer feel appreciated and you can get rid of excess inventory at the same time.

In the end, Internet marketers are all about identifying and remedying issues. If you know how to start your business you will be better off. If you are in the position to solve a problem for someone, you are also in the position to turn them into a customer.

Internet marketing includes a wide variety of strategies for you to use. Start with proven techniques while gradually testing new innovations. But, the advice you just read should make choosing easier.

Richard Vanderhurst

Tips For Successful Holiday Mobile Marketing Campaigns

Modern business practices make mobile marketing a necessity, however finding the right strategy can be troublesome. With the many technologies, codes, formats and techniques, it can be tricky to find the right combination for your needs. Here are some excellent tips for successful mobile marketing techniques.

Use your mission statement to keep your efforts focused. If you have a clear definition of your principles, it’s easier to create a marketing plan that fits them.

Keeping your ears open is the key to building a successful mobile marketing strategy. Seek feedback from your target market and use it to make important decisions. Research what your competitors are doing with their campaigns and determine whether or not you may be able to do something similar.

Don’t get too aggressive sending out offers. Marketing data shows that the optimal offer frequency is between once a week and 2-3 times per month. Your customer should think he will miss out if he doesn’t act now. If they get comfortable seeing too many offers, they might be inclined to disregard this offer.

Do your work for your readers and not yourself. Knowing the goals and desire of your buyers is the fundamental principle of mobile marketing. If you are not aware of what your customers want, it is going to be very difficult to sell them anything. Therefore, when you first meet a customer, you should try to find out exactly what they are looking for.

Try using dedicated short code. It may cost more up-front, but the additional protection it gives your brand can be priceless. It offers some legal protection for you as well.

Offering a way for the recipients of your mobile marketing ads to give feedback is a great way to find out how you are doing and possibly bond with a customer. Appreciate customer feedback when you get it. Positive or negative, it is worth considering what their feedback means to you and your business.

Tell people you will be announcing sales that they can only get if they are a part of your mobile marketing campaign. Talk about it on your site and social media and place ads about it. By presenting your campaign in a helpful manner, your readers are more likely to sign up. Present it as a popular and fun way of staying updated about your offers.

Send a reminder to everyone on your mobile marketing list a few hours prior launching a big sale or event, provided that it is an acceptable hour to send texts. It will give your clients a gentle nudge and remind them that you have an event happening that they may be interested in.

Use various marketing items simultaneously to provide event information for a larger impact. For example, use a direct mail campaign to inform customers of an upcoming sale. Try sending an email the week prior to the event with a text reminder about an hour prior to the sale.

When starting out with mobile marketing you should only launch one campaign at a time to determine what approaches are most successful. Measure your marketing success, not by immediate returns, but by the long-term effectiveness of your campaign. Use this formula to be successful with a new campaign for years to come.

To help your mobile marketing be successful, you should promote it in as many ways as possible. Use your social media networks, as well as your physical store in order to promote your mobile marketing efforts. This gives you optimal exposure, and lets the interested customers have options for getting involved with your business.

Add features to your website like directions and maps, and make sure they are mobile-friendly. Many consumers will turn to their mobile devices when they are trying to reach your store. Look into the best ways to allow for easy access to you. Check that the maps and directions you provide display well on different mobile devices and work properly with mobile searches. Build in a link that takes the visitor to Google maps for exact directions.

If you decide to incorporate SMS messaging as part of your mobile marketing campaign, you should clearly state how frequently messages will be sent when customers opt-in, and have an easy way to opt-out. If done without regard to the correct guidelines, SMS can have a negative impact on the overall marketing campaign because it will have the imposition of notification systems. SMS can be very bothersome. For these reasons, you must make certain that your SMS marketing plan includes only those customers who have opted in. You must also be certain to send only the number of texts you have agreed to monthly. This is a great way to build up your brand loyalty.

If you plan to create an app for your company, you must create one that gives your customers something that serves them convenience and answers to their problems. Potential customers have no use for junk apps that serve no useful purpose or interesting function.

Mobile marketing is one of the best ways to watch your profits rise. More people than ever use their phones to check social media sites and to download applications. Both of these serve as excellent mediums for marketing your business. Take your marketing closer to where your customers are located.

When you set up social networking pages about your business, add links back to your webpage to make it easy for others to find you. Most people will not look you up on social networks, if you do not tell them about your page.

Be wary of the time of day you text your customers. Not too late not too early. Even your very best customer will be irritated by receiving a text message in the early morning or late at night, no matter what the message says.

As you have seen, it’s important to understand how to implement these mobile marketing techniques to best suit your business. Once you understand your options, you’ll be able to choose the best techniques for your own business. Understanding the information and tips offered above is good way to take the first steps in launching a mobile marketing campaign.