social media

Thousand Letters, Sent: A Guide to Effective Email Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Mario

Tell me, when was the last time you received a love letter? What were the most unforgettable words for you? To be honest, I used to cringe every time someone gave me a love letter. I mean, too much romance was too much for me and it was not worth it. Well, at least that was what I thought until this particular someone sent an amazing letter for me, with words so unforgettable and not too much romantic. The way he said things in that letter successfully made my heart flutter like no other. It was beautifully written as he put his sincerest heart into writing it – no hidden agenda, no hidden plot – just pure feelings. What makes it different than any other cringe-worthy love letters, though? Well, there is just one ultimate understanding I can easily explain to you; he was not trying to sell himself in that letter. People write love letters easily and give it to the one they love. However, most of them try to impress the recipient of that letter by ‘selling’ too much, hoping the recipient will accept their love by creating awesome love letters. Sincere and unique people like the one who sent me beautifully crafted message are purely expressing their feelings unconditionally and genuinely without trying to impress the recipient – they just want their feelings to reach the one they love. That is what makes it different. So, when it comes to this, how about applying the same mindset and method for marketing? As a person who works to provide Melbourne SEO services for many business owners out there, I know for a fact that email marketing is never outdated. In fact, many businesses use email marketing to generate more real paying customers. So, how do you plan effective email marketing strategy? Keep reading this article to find out!

Now, there will always be businesses who don’t believe in the power of email marketing. This happens mainly because they fail to see any positive results with their email marketing efforts due to their own shortcomings. Sometimes these business owners just need a few email marketing tips to increase the value of their emails. If you have the same problem, do these tips below:

  • First, know your audience. As a business, you should know why your business exists; to help solve your customers’ problems. Before sending your email marketing, make sure you know you are sending your email to the right people
  • Get to the point and make it short and simple. While it is still important to give introduction in emails, if you write a long-written text, chances are, your email recipients will stop reading the whole email because it doesn’t tell them the point exactly
  • Send regular, consistent emails. Now I am not saying you should email people every day. It doesn’t work like that. Regular emails don’t mean you should send emails every single day. Regular emails are sent consistently according to the day, date, time and occasional events. For example, your regular emails are sent every Thursday and Friday. Thursday and Fridays are the less hectic days where people can check their emails without having to fear of wasting time. Also, people seldom check emails during the weekends because it’s time for them to get some rest after their hard work. Aside from that, if you have an upcoming event in the near future, you can share it in your email
  • Make a unique subject. I have to admit, every time I got an email from any eCommerce website of which email newsletters I have subscribed to, I will forget their emails if the subject doesn’t attract my attention enough. A unique subject consisting of the benefits I will get (from opening that email) such as “Get a 50% discount without minimum order only for today!” will most likely trigger me to click that email. It is short and simple, yet very promising and reliable

The email marketing tips that we discussed above may seem simple at first, but once applied, you will see positive results. Try to take a step by step approach to improving your email marketing. It won’t happen overnight, but it will get better if you take the right steps at the right time. Remember, your email marketing campaigns will turn profitable only if take care of the details, which make up the big picture.

Instagram Cheat Sheet: How to Use Hashtags for Your Instagram Posts Properly

Posted on by Mario

I used to not mind all the likes I could get on my Instagram posts and how many people were engaged with my content. However, after having a side business, I realized that using social media is much more than what meets the eye. From social media engagement itself, you can have a chance of getting people to consider buying what you sell. For that reason alone, many business owners start hiring social media services to engage with their potential and returning buyers. Social media is an essential piece of your business marketing strategy because social platforms help you connect with your customers, increase awareness about your brand, and boost your leads and sales. With more than three billion people around the world using social media every month, it’s no passing trend. Now with the rise of Instagram use for social media, it has become clearer that Instagram has better potentials for you to increase your brand awareness. Instagram enables a business to sell something more than just products. It can help to build up a better word of mouth. Reaching out to the audience through a platform like Instagram makes the relations with the target audience friendlier. However, reaching more audience and improving engagement with users is not an easy matter especially if you don’t set up social media ads. That being said, there is one of the ways you can ‘cheat’ Instagram marketing strategy without actually cheating if you haven’t got the time to hire a social media specialist; hashtags. Hashtags on Instagram are useful as they help other Instagram users discover your profile, which can ultimately increase the likelihood of obtaining more followers. Contrary to Twitter, using more specific hashtags on Instagram can help build a bigger audience for your business…only if you use it properly. So, how do you use hashtags for your business Instagram account posts and stories? Keep reading to find out!

When using hashtags, here are a few rules you need to know in order to use it properly:

  • Before posting your content, do some hashtag research
  • Find words that are related to your content and your business
  • Look at the number of engagements using the specific hashtags
  • Remember this; hashtags with most posts (like hashtags with million posts) may give you a boost in likes because many people will likely search those specific hashtags; however, there is also a higher chance that your posts that use those hashtags would be ‘cloistered’ and it could be possible that your posts would disappear from those specific hashtags because there would be other new posts coming from other users in just a few seconds since well, many people use those hashtags. Hashtags with thousands up to hundred thousand posts (below a million) may not give you a boost in likes and findings, but you can help people who are looking for what you sell narrow down search results and directly find you. Yes, hashtags like that can improve the possibility of your Instagram posts to be found by people in an easier way. For that reason,
  • It is important to combine both hashtags with most and least engagement in one post
  • You can use up to 30 hashtags and anything beyond that won’t show up in search, but I recommend using at least 15–20. In general, more is better! Go for all 30 if you use them well. Include as many as you can use strategically while staying relevant to your business.
  • Yes, you can use hashtags in your Instagram stories and even your bio! Make use of the right hashtags that are relevant to your business
  • Avoid using irrelevant topics and hashtags no matter how popular and trending those hashtags at the moment

Those are the rules to Instagram hashtag cheat sheet! That way, you don’t really cheat but if you follow those rules, you are on the right path of your business world.

A Path Led to Success: Undeniable Reasons Why Your Website is Not Generating Leads

Posted on by Mario

As a part of Melbourne web development team, I get asked a lot about why a website is not generating leads or that a website doesn’t work the way we want it to. I am not a web developer but I am a part of their team, so I asked one of my friends from the team about this. He gave me a very detailed explanation but I have summed it up into several parts in this article. His explanation may be detailed, but it is actually very simple to understand. Need to understand why your website is not generating leads? Keep reading this article to find out!

So you’ve built a cool website with all the bells and whistles, you work hard to build traffic and get people to look at your offers but all they do is bounce off and buy from your competitor? Don’t worry; you will know the reasons and factors once you finish reading this article.

You have probably created confusing call-to-actions

When we investigate pages with low conversion rates, our first port of call is analyzing calls to action (CTA). One common thing we have found when analyzing those pages is that there are too many CTAs on a single landing page. The general rule for making great website with high conversion rate is that there is only one CTA necessary per page. If you want a visitor to make a purchase, your CTA is “buy now.” Therefore, stick to the single CTA rule and you’ll see that the landing page starts generating leads.

Your CTAs are too weak or vague

One of the popular reasons your website is not generating leads is that you use weak or vague CTAs. How many times have you seen an important B2B landing page where the lead capture form has an uninspiring grey action button reading “Submit”? Not only does this word has a subconsciously negative connotation, it is also very passive and unexciting. Like, submit what? What can your visitors gain from submitting something that is not clear? It should be simple but clear like this; the button should be active and tell the visitor exactly what he needs to do. If it’s a purchase, it should read “buy now”. If it’s an ebook, it should read “download your free copy” and so on.

Your website has poor design and content

Content and web design have a big role in generating more leads. Why? Put yourself in your visitors’ shoes; if you are visiting a website that has confusing content that is not even answering your questions as to why you should buy their products (Well, that’s the main reason why we are visiting a business website; to find the information about their products and their business), would you even consider buying their products? No, right? On the other hand, if you are visiting a website and you can’t even read the content because of poor or difficult designs, would you even continue trying so hard to read what is inside the website? Would you even continue browsing the page if you cannot click on the right button because of unclear navigation? No, right? That’s why the website fails and you don’t want that to happen to your website as well.

Also, one of the most important parts to remember when building a website is to focus on and prioritize responsiveness on mobile devices. In this day and age, people use mobile devices more often to browse a website than their personal computer because it is easier that way and it can be done on the go. The competition in most niches are so strong; and a visitor who hasn’t been happy with his user experience on a mobile device will not make the effort of revisiting the site on a desktop device. Instead, they will check a competitor’s website. Therefore, keep in mind that in order for your website to generate more leads, you need to pay attention to every details of your website including its functionality and responsiveness when accessed through mobile devices. When you have this mindset, your business is on the right path.