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The frenzy surrounding social media in 2009 has created an expectation among some small business owners that it is the magic bullet solution to all their marketing problems. They think that if they just throw up a Facebook Fan Page, get a Twitter account, and post their profile to LinkedIn, the business will start rolling in and they can abandon more traditional tactics.

Wrong.

Certainly, the numbers indicate Social Networking is a hugely popular venue, a place where millions of people gather daily to communicate. According to the online competitive intelligence service Compete.com, social media growth continues to skyrocket. The top three social networks—Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—collectively received more than 2.5 billion visits in September 2009 alone. Twitter grew by more than 600 percent in 2009, while Facebook grew by 210 percent and LinkedIn by 85 percent.

As of this writing, Google and Yahoo are the only websites that receive more daily traffic than Facebook and the trend suggests that gap is narrowing. In fact, if Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s fourth largest (thanks to John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing for that factoid).

Establishing and maintaining an effective Social Networking presence takes more than just opening a few accounts. It take strategy, integration, and persistence to build relationships that eventually will contribute to your bottom line. Don’t even think about using Social Networking for business unless:

You are willing to commit. Effective Social Networking can’t be done in fits and starts. Establish a system and stick to it. If additional opportunities to participate arise, take advantange of them.

You are willing to be useful. Your audience doesn’t care what you had for breakfast or how the boss at work is making your life miserable. Add relevant information to the conversation.

You are willing to be generous with your knowledge. Willingly share your expertise and passion.

You are willing to listen. If all you did was listen and respond to pertinent topics, Social Networking would be a tremendous marketing tool for your business.

You are willing to build relationships. Social networking is not about selling…it’s about giving customers an opportunity to buy by getting them to know, like and trust you.

You are willing to be patient. Social networking takes time. Like a fine wine, Social Networking gets better with age.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Want to know the quickest, easiest way to alienate you hard-earned email distribution list?

Bombard them with irrelevant, self-serving, poorly designed emails. It’s a recipe for a quick click of the “delete” or worse yet, the “spam” button.

As the email marketing industry has become more sophisticated, so too have the expectations of your recipients. They want to be educated, informed and entertained. If you do that consistently, they won’t mind the occasional sales pitch dropped in, especially if you are offering products and services they need and want at a price that meets or exceeds their perceived value.

Here are five tips to keep in mind when planning and executing your next email campaign:

Focus on being relevant and offering value: Keep your customers’ needs in mind. Will they appreciate what you are sending? Will they understand its value? Keep the message simple and the layout clean so there are no distractions.

Make It Eye-Catching: The process of getting someone to read and react to your email starts with an intriguing Subject Line and a familiar From Line. Even if those two critical components are on target, you still have only a few seconds to catch and hold your readers’ interest. Think of it like a billboard on a superhighway. Make sure your brand is easily identifiable, the offer is clear, and the call to action strong.

Be a Tease: Use only one or two paragraphs from a longer article, then drive traffic to your website by including a “Read More” tag. Snippets are easier on the eye and don’t discourage readers by forcing them to plow through dense mountains of information.

Opt-Ins Are Like Gold: The temptation might be to build your list quickly with unscrupulous tactics on the theory that bigger is better. Resist that temptation at all costs. Better to send your emails to a smaller list of people who actually want to read them than to a bunch of faceless email addresses. Consistently poor deliverability is a no-no for most email service providers.

Take Time to Build Your List: Highlight the benefits of being subscriber, then give people an easy way to sign up to receive your emails. Offer an incentive — a special report, a discount, or some other tangible product – to encourage people to subscribe. It may take longer that buying lists or using using shady tactics to harvest email address, but the results will be far better in the long run.

Here’s the bottom line – quality will be rewarded, quantity will not. If your ISP doesn’t flag you as a spammer, your recipients will ignore you. Either way, your email campaign will fall flat and you’ll be left wondering why.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Ever since a caveman scrawled the first advertising slogan on rock wall, three factors have influenced the profitability of any marketing effort:

The Right Message…
To The Right Market…
At The Right Time!

Unfortunately, many small businesses miss at least one of thse critifal factors. Heck, some overlook two or all three. The result is heaps of wasted money and squandered opportunities. Some businesses spend too much money on ego-feed image advertising, and not nearly enough on direct response offers, which are easy to track and evaluate. So, how you you change that?

Here are three ways to make the most of your marketing dollars:

Keep image advertising to a minimum. Sure, it’s nice to see a clever half-page ad in Sports Illustrated or the NY Times. But you never really know how effective it is? Does it lead to inquiries? Sales?

Test, test, test, especially direct response campaigns that are inexpensive. You can offer FREE stuff — reports, samples, coupons — or other response devices. Couple them with compelling copy that show you understand your target audience’s wants and needs. Connect with them, solve their most pressing problems and you’ll have a customer for life.

When you find a successful direct response offer, stick with it. Use every tactic at your disposal — autoresponders, email newsletters, postcards, phone calls — to stay relevant to your loyal customers.

Follow up is critical. Be persistent but respectful. If a potential customer tells you to back off, respect those wished. But don’t be shy about contacting leads if you have additional information that might help sway their decision.

A computerized system that methodically, repetitively and consistently follows up with your leads is the most cost-effective alternative. Otherwise, you might be spending too much time doing manual labor or, worse, wasting valuable leads.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Email is a powerful tool for marketing good and services. While the options are virtually unlimited, there are a handful of best practices that every email marketer should stick to:

Be Personable
You wouldn’t just walk up to someone you know at a cocktail party and say “Greetings” would you? No, you’d address that person by name. Same with your email marketing. Include your subscriber’s name right at the beginning. Studies have shown that emails with a personal greeting enjoy a much higher response rate. It’s human nature – people love being addressed personally. It makes them feel valued and appreciated. A simple “Hey Joe,” will go a very long way in increasing the response rate.

Think Like a Headline Writer
Most people make a decision about whether to read a story based on the headline. If it sounds interesting or informative, readers will give it a shot. The same is true for email subject lines. Avoid the boring, easy-to-ignore “ABC Co. Newsletter – September Issue.” That’s not going to entice anyone to open it. Instead, include a benefit in the subject, something that will pique a reader’s interest to the point of actually opening your email. How about something like this: “Improve Your Bottom Line in 3 Easy Steps” from ABC Co.

Always Include an Unsubscribe Link
Hard to believe, but some emailers still refuse to include an unsubscribe link in every email or make it so inconspicous and difficult to use that people don’t notice or give up after a handful of clicks. Beyond just being courteous, it’s also a legal requirement in the United States. And if that’s not enough, including an unsubscribe link can help keep your list clean and your deliverability high. You don’t want to waste time marketing to people who have no use for what you are offering. Make sure your unsubscribe link is clearly visible and easy to use.

Text Links vs. Image Links?
Everyone wants to produce emails that are visually attractive and graphically robust. But some research shows that bold, blue, underlined text links draw a better response than images that need to be clicked. Although image links are okay, text links are a more effective way to get readers to click-through to your strategic landing page.

Write Clearly
Make sure there are no spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors on your email message. Make your point and move on. Your message, especially on the web, has to be clear, concise and compelling. Readers won’t put up with rambling, disjointed, jargon-filled essays. Oblivion is just a mouse-click away.

Provide Additional Connections
Make sure the links to your social media profiles appear in all of your emails – you can add them as content blocks in your HTML newsletter and in the email signature of your individual emails.

Be Consistent
I know I’m a drying breed, but I’ve come to expect my newspaper to be delivered at about 6:30 every morning. If it’s even a couple of minutes late I get antsy. As long as you are delivering an email that is useful to your readers, they, too, will come to depend on it. They’ll look for it at a certain time and a certain day. The same rules holds true for your enewsletter design. When my newspaper changes its look, it takes me a while to get accustomed to familiar features in different places. Don’t change your design every other issue and keep your “From” field consistent, Minor tweaks are ok but people tend to prefer routine rather than surprises.

If you have any other best practices for email marketing, I’d love to hear about them.

Popularity: 37% [?]

(Seventh in a Series)

Your persuasive copy must convince readers that not only is your product or service superior, it’s also a great value. Since it’s never a good idea to compete on price, how can you do this?

One way is to stress the cost of ownership rather than the cost of purchase. If you can show your product will last longer or your service will produce a greater return on investment, it’s easy to justify the higher initial price.

Take two digital printers with identical features, for example. One’s price tag is $300 more than the other. But the higher-priced machine produces copies at half the cost of the less expensive competitor. Over the two copiers’ expected life cycles, the higher priced version will save money in the long run. Your copy can and should reflect that.

Cost of ownership includes several factors: maintenance, support, and repairs are just a few that can be mentioned in your copy. The product or serve that costs the least to purchase may be the most expensive to own and operate.

Another way to build value is to stress that the price you are asking is small relative to the revenue it can produce or save. Copywriter Bob Bly uses this example:

“What would you do if the EPA assessed a $685,000 fine against your company for non-compliance with environmental regulations you weren’t even aware existed? Now get the special 50th anniversary Edition of Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook for only $4.97 (list price $129.50) with your No-Risk Trial Membership in McGraw Hill’s Chemical Engineers’ Book Club.”

Who could turn down paying $4.97 for information that might save them $685,000? They would probably gladly pay the $129.50 list price!

If you product or service will be used over a long period of time, it’s a good strategy to emphasize that cost over that extended time. It helps reduce the sticker shock. Life insurance companies are particularly adept at this. Rather than pushing annual premiums, they often break the cost down into months, week or even days. “Protect your family for 55 cents a day” sounds more affordable than “The annual premium is $200.”

(Next: Close with a Call to Action)

Popularity: 51% [?]