Tag Archives: digital marketing

Build And Engage: How To Master Email Marketing

Building The List

With all the hype about email lists, you may be tempted to buy a list as a quick fix. Don’t! You’ll be paying twice with this strategy, firstly when you shell out for an email list and again when they all unsubscribe, report you as spammer and disengage.

A bought list forgets the most important element of email marketing – engagement. We’ll get to that, but first let’s look at how you can build your own email list from the ground up with genuine subscribers who are open to hearing from you.

You may also like to read: How to make more people open your newsletter.

Opt-In Incentives

The first step towards building your email list is getting people to opt in.

That means they’ve made a positive decision to hear from you and engaging them down the line will be a whole lot easier. To do this, I highly recommend offering an opt-in incentive (aka a Lead Magnet, aka a Content Upgrade!). This is a bit of bait you can dangle that’s going to encourage potential leads to take the first step and sign up.

If you’ve noticed something that stands out in what your subscribers ask of you, this can function as a great opt-in incentive.

For example, if you’re running a travel blog and people keep asking you how you can afford all, you can pull together your top tips for budget travel into a pdf format and offer that as an opt-in incentive.

An incentive doesn’t have to be complicated – a small offering is likely enough to get people on the list. Once they’ve signed up, you’re going to be sending them great content on the reg.

Opt-In Locations

The other key ingredient to building your email list is where you offer the opt-in.

If people don’t see a way to subscribe to your mailing list, they’re simply not going to end up on it! Try to find at least three or four locations on your website where you can plug the opt-in – once your website is optimized to produce these conversions, you’ll see your list grow by the day.

Putting an opt-in in the header of your website is the best and most obvious place for it. Everyone coming to your website sees this straight away, reducing any barriers to people signing up.

Beyond the header, consider a timed pop-up: don’t be afraid of pop-up hate because they simply work, and a well-timed pop up can be introduced unobtrusively.

Clean Your List

Big numbers are great for an email list but for a healthy list quality triumphs over quantity every time. That means that you’ll need to give your list a spring clean from time to time, pruning away those inactive or unengaged subscribers. There are plenty of handy email- list tools out there that will scan your email list and pick up common typos such as .con instead of .com that mean people are missing out on your valuable emails.

You should use these tools to figure out where emails are going unopened, so that you can start a reactivation campaign. Subscribers who have disengaged are still out there, just waiting to be won back with an offer of new content or a relevant reward.

Great Content

Of course, great content is essential to engaging your subscriber list. You’ve hooked them with your opt-in incentives, but subscribers ultimately tire of promotional content so you need your emails to add value to keep subscribers engaged. Find a balance between content and offers to keep subscribers opening emails.

Now you know how to build your email list and engage those subscribers, what are you waiting for? Go get ’em, tiger.

Why Will the COVID-19 Crisis Boost Digital Marketing in the Future?

The new reality

For the time being, virtual reality is the only one where we can actually connect. For this reason, it is essential for brands to continue with the online presence and show people that we’re all in this together.

Many businesses are having a hard time coping with the loss of profits, and are wondering if they’re going to survive. And we are all aware that many people have lost their jobs and financial stability.

The times are quite unfortunate, but no one could have predicted these circumstances. The only way for a business to survive is to adapt to rapid changes, stay visible and relevant, and understand the consequences for when everything gets back to normal.

Staying relevant

It has never been so important to remind people of your products and services. Trying to anticipate the needs of the consumers is a leading idea in marketing in general, but at this point, you have a better perspective than usual.

And you can even get the best out of this awful situation and earn more trust among your customers, by increasing the loyalty levels. You know that everyone is spending more time online, so you need to be present as well.

There are several aspects of your visibility, starting with social media.

This period can be an opportunity to work on your digital marketing improvement, as its importance is going to continue growing afterwards.

Providing relevant content and staying on top of the crisis will make your brand more humane, and you ought to show empathy while raising your brand awareness.

Share the latest updates and helpful advice, ask for feedback and try to entertain people.

You can attract a new audience and possibly convert them into customers.

In terms of branding, this can turn out to be a great phase in which your business can evolve. It is highly recommended to use this time to invest in PPC and SEO services, as those are becoming the new and modern “traditional” ways of marketing.

Experts all over the world have been saying this for a while now, but now, living only in the virtual world, deprived of human contact, it is becoming clear as a day.

Consumer intentions and habits

Digital marketing and peoples expectations during Covid-19

People are adapting to the changes quite rapidly, and their expectations change in accordance.

You need to follow and respond to those because billboards are huge, but the reality is that most people will walk by them staring at the screen of their smartphones.

The importance of e-commerce is also exponentially growing, therefore the need for better online promotion.

It is all connected, and every trend will influence the next one. But, since we’re not talking about fashion, the trends will not come back, but only continue to change.

Your ranking on the search engines is likely to determine the future of your brand’s image and reputation.

Most people will search for the product or service they need before they purchase, so they need to be able to learn about your brand. It is simply not enough to have a website, because, without the proper promotion, the traffic on it will most likely be on a low level. Furthermore, not every one of those visits will end up with a conversion of users into buyers.

The future has arrived, and you shouldn’t leave a head start to your competitors, by staying in the past.

Conduct research of your competition and you will most likely find out they are all investing in paid advertisements and optimization of search engines. The smartest move would be heavily investing in the promotion now and preparing something valuable to offer. Since there is a movement restriction, the best advice is to focus on the local area and include it in your targeted keywords.

Emotional component

When you are there for someone in the hardest of times, people tend not to forget it. They will appreciate a supporting video message from a company’s CEO for example and every other way you can try to engage them.

We are all isolating and staying home, surrounded by the devastating news which are shaping our minds and heavily influencing our emotional stability.

Having the emotional component in the equation can help you trigger the positive ones and create a more stable connection with consumers, further increasing the levels of loyalty.

No one can say for sure how much longer this is going to last, but one thing is sure – the world will not be the same afterwards. Once the habit is formed, it is not so easy to break out of it.

This doesn’t mean people will continue to shop in bulk, but rather there will be many changes in our lifestyle that have happened on a subconscious level.

Accept the fact the virtual reality is becoming more and more intertwined with real life, and as soon as you adapt to it, you will see the results and higher profits.

You can even convert the most loyal consumers of other brands, by appealing to their emotions. Brands that have developed a strategy for promoting the offer of deliveries will be more respected and attract new buyers, for example.

Conclusion

In the world of entrepreneurship, flexibility has always been the key.

Marketers need to focus on the expectations and habits of consumers, in order to find the right approach.

The Internet has changed the very essence of life, and people will most likely continue to shop online, and those numbers are predicted to only grow over time.

One-click purchases, and deliveries are some of the features people are grateful for in the new age.

The time is only going forward, so don’t let yourself be stuck in the past.

Relevant versus opportunistic content writing

What content do you write and publish during the coronavirus outbreak?

This is a vital question and I’ve been pondering over it for quite some time now.

In fact, recently I wrote What marketing rules to follow during a crisis like the Covod-19 outbreak, aside from other posts on writing and publishing content during a global tragedy.

One thing is clear. The crisis is going to get over, whether it takes a few months or a couple of years.

Even if things don’t improve much health-wise but most countries manage to flatten the curve, economic activities, in various altered forms, are going to resume.

If you don’t want to be left behind, you must focus on publishing content on your website to maintain the presence that you have created so far, or improve it.

The question is not whether you write and publish content or not, the question is, how to differentiate between relevant and opportunistic content?

The blog post from Skyword has some good insights on how to decide what is relevant and what is opportunistic when writing content for your website in the times of an international crisis like the Covid-19 outbreak.

It talks about 3 R’s to consider: Research; Refine & Reflect.

Research what most important is to your audience right now.

Think of how what you are writing and publishing solves their contemporary problems.

Make sure that what you are writing and publishing makes sense.

You don’t want to seem like a greedy jerk. You don’t want people think that even during a crisis of such scale, all you can think of is your business.

To be frank, everyone who is not dealing with the virus directly, is worried about his or her business, and there is nothing wrong in that.

We are all worried about the financial safety of our loved ones.

We know that once the world recovers its footing economic activities will resume and then people will be scrambling for all the opportunities they can get.

In terms of writing and publishing content, what are most of my clients concerned about right now?

Right now, they are mostly concerned about two things:

How to scrape the bottom of the barrel and get as much work as possible (or sell as many products as possible).
How to make sure that when things pick up again, their customers and clients can find them.

Many of my clients know that while people are unable to go to offices and take care of their normal activities, they are generating lots of targeted content to improve their SEO and expand their presence.

I’m not a healthcare expert. I’m not a doctor. I’m not even the news portal with the responsibility of keeping my visitors informed about the latest threats that coronavirus is posing or the new discoveries that are being made.

This information is already abundantly available, and one can easily find it.

When people come to my website, they’re looking for a good content writer who can help them publish quality content on their websites and blogs.

They are looking for a writer who can help them improve their search engine rankings.

They are looking for a copywriter who can help them improve the open rates of their email newsletters.

Basically, they want to improve the performance of their digital marketing efforts as much as possible.

They are also worried about the future.

Everything seems to be altered right now. People are being laid off. Old ways of doing business are being questioned. We are on completely uncharted waters.

Not just about their livelihoods, they are also worried about their own health and the health of their loved ones.

The over availability of news bombards them with all sorts of fears and worries.

Amidst all this, they are courageous enough to think about their business in terms of strategy and action.

So, although, mine is not a portal where they are looking for information on how coronavirus spreads and how it can be prevented, they are certainly looking for information on how to improve their SEO and overall conversion rate.

How to create a balance between relevance and opportunity?

For some, opportunities are always there. I recently read in a ZDNet update that since most of the people are working from home, cloud-based services are doing brisk business.

We cannot resent them for that. People have more reason now to use cloud-based services. G Suite is doing better. Microsoft 365 (previously called Office 365) and Microsoft Azure are raking in great profits.

Despite various controversies, Zoom is suddenly in great demand.

Technologies that can deliver food and other services with minimum or even zero human interaction are being developed with great speed.

So, yes, in every challenge, even if it is a global catastrophe, people are going to find opportunities, or they are going to be present where they can make use of the situation profitably.

There is no harm in explaining to your prospective customers and clients how your business can help them.

I can help people improve their search engine rankings, engagement and conversion rate through quality content.

People may not be directly looking for solutions from you. But they need you to empathize. They want to know that we are all in the same boat.

Right now, when you are writing and publishing content for your website and blog, write according to the current context.

Consider the problems they are facing and despite that, promote your products and services in such a manner that they seem appropriate under the circumstances.

For example, instead of saying “I’m great at content writing so hire me”, you can try something like “I can understand the problems you’re going through and I too am going through more or less the same set of problems. Maybe we can work out an arrangement where I can provide you my services and help you in whichever way I can using my content writing abilities.”

As someone who knows what the power of content writing is, through constant publishing, I try to educate my visitors on how important it is, especially now, to focus on publishing high-quality content so that their messaging can adjust to the new realities of our time, and despite these realities, they can leverage whatever opportunities are available.