So in no official order, below are the top ten most read blog posts of 2011:

Top Email Marketing Checks To Do Before You Hit Send

Email marketing is a very effective way to communicate with your current and prospect customers. It’s quick, inexpensive and can give you instant results. But it’s important that it’s done right. Make sure you make the most of each eblast by making the following email marketing checks: From Name Is your ‘From’ name recognisable? Will [...]

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Google+ For Business

If you’ve been in a coma recently, you might not have heard about Google’s new social media platform, Google+! Even though it’s been around now for a few weeks, there’s still some confusion over how to use it and what it could mean to you both personally and as a business. The service is Google’s [...]

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Building Your Email Marketing List : Research Results

A couple of months ago, MarketingSherpa released the results of a study they had undertaken, into the most effective methods of growing an email marketing list. The researchers asked more than 1100 marketers to indicate the effectiveness of various methods used within their organisation. This is what they found: Although these results are based on [...]

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Top Black Hat SEO Techniques You Must Avoid

Wikipedia describes black hat SEO as “SEO tactics such as spamdexing, attempt to redirect search results to particular target pages in a fashion that is against the search engines’ terms of service and is often considered unethical SEO.” The alternative is white hat SEO, which are the techniques that are approved by the search engines [...]

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Reciprocal Linking – Good or Bad SEO?

If you’ve got a new website and you’re trying to optimise it and improve it’s position in the search engine results for your desired key terms, you may be aware that link building is an important area of SEO that you need to focus on. So it could be tempting to respond positively to an [...]

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Secrets of Successful Blogging

The term “weblog” was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form, “blog,” was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase “we blog” in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999. Ever since then, people have been blogging for business and for [...]

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Top Ten Google AdWord Mistakes – Part Two

Following from our previous post last Thursday, here are the additional five mistakes that we see people make in their Google AdWord Campaigns: 6. Not targetting the right group of searchers: Is your product or services aimed towards a particular demographic or geographical location? Did you know that you can set your AdWord campaigns to target those [...]

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MegaBus Robots.txt File Fail

I am organising a trip up to London with some friends in September. We’ve decided to save some money and use the MegaBus to travel from Southampton. Due to my love of all thing organising, I was put in charge of sorting out the costs etc. So first thing I did was to Google MegaBus. [...]

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Online Promotion: How to promote a new offer, product or service online

Online promotion is a key marketing method for small businesses. If you’re promoting a new offer, product or service, how can you market it online? One of the key benefits of the Internet is that it creates an even platform – allowing smaller businesses to promote themselves at a relatively low cost. But you still need [...]

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Small Business Branding, Logo and Corporate Identity – What’s the Difference?

Okay small business owners, I have some questions for you here: How many of you reading this, know what your logo is? (I’m really hoping you’re nodding along, safe in the knowledge that you know what your logo is! I’ll be scared if  you don’t, unless you’re just starting a new business and haven’t had a [...]

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If you want to start 2012 with a bang, get in touch. We love helping businesses grow through using effective online marketing. So if you want more leads, more sales and more growth in 2012 drop us an email or complete our contact form.

Measure the success of your email campaigns with ease

Knowing who opened your emails, what links they clicked on, which email addresses bounced and which contacts unsubscribed can help you understand who your audience is, and what they’re interested in reading.

For every email campaign you send, SMEmail automatically creates reports that are:

• Extremely easy to understand
• Updated automatically
• Simple and easy to share with other people

Save time

Quite often, the actual sending of your emails is the quick and easy bit (although it may cause havoc to your mail systems internally!). We’ve found that it can be managing and processing the results of your email campaign that really takes up your time.

• Subscribe and unsubscribe requests — It’s an unfortunate fact that most likely every time you send an email campaign, some of your contacts will want to unsubscribe. It might not take you long to process these requests, but what happens if you are suddenly called away, are on holiday or have to leave for some reason? These request can build up quickly and if you don’t manage if effectively, you could land yourself in trouble if you email that person again.
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  SMEmail lets people unsubscribe instantly from all the email they receive, and your email contact list is updated automatically.

• Dealing with bounced emails — We generally say that you should expect a bounce rate of about 10% for most email campaigns. That doesn’t sound much, but could quickly add up to hundreds or thousands of emails. You need to know – are they permanent bounces? If so, are you going to remove them from your list? Or do you need to resend your email back to them again?
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  SMEmail instantly removes hard bounces, and re-sends your campaigns automatically to addresses which soft bounce.

• Dealing with any spam complaints — Occasionally people may forget that they signed up for your emails, and hit the spam button (it’s annoying, but it does happen! Human beings are forgetful by nature!). SMEmail instantly removes people from your list when they make a spam complaint, ensuring they do not receive any more email

• Avoid hold ups on your own email servers — We’ve heard of more than one marketing manager staying up till all hours trying to send email campaigns out without shutting down the company email network. Let our servers handle that load for you.

Use advanced options and smarter features

• Personalisation — Use custom fields to adapt your emails for individual subscribers
• API — A programming interface to let you integrate SMEmail with your own systems
• Segmentation — Send focused emails to subsets of your full lists
• Powerful import and export — Easily get your subscriber lists into and out of the system at any time
• Archive your campaigns — Easily display your previous campaigns on your website

Constant improvement

A web based service like SMEmail can be updated with better performance, new features and smarter tools very quickly, and at no extra cost. You don’t have to worry about having the wrong version, or getting out of date.

We are constantly adding new features and making updates to make SMEmail do more for you in less time.

Focus on your customers, not on your technology

Of course, you can use your own email client such as Outlook or some other in-house tool to add your subscribers and deal with unsubscribe requests and bounces from bad emails all day.

But wouldn’t you rather spend that time working on the email itself, crafting the message to better meet your customers requirements and tweaking subject lines and headlines to get better results?

Using an email service provider like SMEmail lets you avoid the mundane administrative work and concentrate on serving your customers better.

Sign up for a free account today. Costing just £5 per blast plus 1p per recipient, you’ll find SMEmail is one of the most cost effective email marketing tools in the market today. Email us on info@SMEketing.com now.

Although these results are based on the perceived effectiveness (as opposed to using actual conversion statistics, such as the level of sales achieved/leads generated etc), it still goes someway to show that in order to build an effective marketing database you need to build up a level of trust with your customers/web visitors. Don’t just throw up a form and expect people to subscribe, they want to trust that they’ll be receiving high quality content. As MarketingSherpa said:

“These results align well with content marketing strategies. Tactics that deliver value to the customer such as purchased products, downloaded material and webinars develop trusted relationships which enable customers to share email addresses and contact information. For this reason, company blogs and published articles have become an excellent method of capturing email addresses.”

You can find out more about how you can build your email marketing database here: How to boost your email marketing database. If you want to start email marketing, but aren’t sure where to start – please get in touch. The SMEketing Email Marketing Tool is one of the most cost effective solutions in the market, costing just 1p per recipient to send. For more information go to our email marketing solutions page.

At SMEketing, we’re always going on about the importance of testing – test your landing pages, test your Google AdWord ads, test your call to actions… and what else? Test your email marketing!

But what to test? Email marketing can be daunting enough, but if you really want to help improve your campaigns and boost the results your get month by month, you must be testing key parts of each email you send. Testing will help improve your open rates, improve your click through rates and will improve your conversion rates (be that leads, sales or other desired actions).

So here are our top email marketing areas to test:

• Subject Line: Please, please, please test this! It has been documented well that the subject line is one of the key factors in whether your email gets opened or not. People are bombarded with spam nowadays and as such are very unwilling to open emails that they don’t a) recognise, or b) feel are relevant to them (or even c) if they recognise it and feel it’s relevant, but it sounds a little bit boring, then they’ll also likely send it straight to the bin – ouch!). It’s difficult to know what makes a good subject line – it’s different for each industry, depends on your audience and what the content of a specific email is. But you’ll only know (and grow to learn and understand successful trends) if you test it.

• From Address: At SMEketing, we received an email the other day from someone called ‘Newsletter’… not very descriptive. Normally it would get deleted, but being in this industry we thought we’d open it and send them a nice little email explaining why this was such a bad idea! But for the majority of people, getting an email with such a vague ‘From’ address would raise warning flags. With spam at an all time high and viruses and malware being distributed so easily, it would be a more than normal reaction to mark this as spam without even opening it. So think about this carefully – who is sending your emails, and who is receiving your emails? If the email is being sent to a small group of people it might be worth personalising this with the name of their account manager or main contact at your company. If the group is larger (although you should think about segmenting your lists – but that’s a whole different blog post!), then maybe keep it a bit more generic, but make sure you let them know clearly who this email is from.

• Use of Images: Not all email providers accept images – so there’s a big chance that your readers won’t be able to see them anyway. If you use a lot of images in your emails, this could negatively affect your results. If your images do manage to get through, then you need to know what kind of images work and what doesn’t.

• Call To Actions (CTA): Testing your CTA is an important part of all marketing, and it definitely shouldn’t stop with email marketing. Just because a particular CTA works on your Google AdWord landing pages, doesn’t mean it will automatically work will with your email marketing. Email marketing is a different communication platform, so should be treated as such – all the things that work on other channels might not work so well on this (or, they might work even better – but if you don’t test, you won’t know!).

• Landing Pages: Much like your Google AdWords campaigns, think about where your sending people. Is it to your homepage, or do you have a dedicated page that relates to this email or the specific content in this email? Think about it carefully… and then test it!

• Time You Send Your Email: The time of day can affect your email results, as can the day you send. Think about how you personally deal with emails. On a Monday morning, you come into the office, switch on your computer and start going through all the emails you missed last week, all the emails that have come in over the weekend, and then all the emails that are now starting to make their way to you. Would now be a good time to send your email out? Probably not… however, would 11am on a Monday, when people are settled in their work but are still switched onto dealing with emails, is that a good time to send your email blast? Who knows? The only way is to test! Test the day, test the time and keep on testing.

Hopefully this has given you some food for thought. If you’re starting out on your email marketing journey and feel you need a bit of advice, please let us know. Leave us a comment below or send us an email.

However, these fantastic results can only be achieved if you have a high quality list to send to in the first place. Building up a list of opt-in emails is a process that takes time and dedication. Businesses can’t just buy in lists and expect to see great results anymore. You need to ensure that the people you’re sending your email marketing to want to receive the content you’re sending. So how can you build a high quality opt-in list? Here are some of the most popular and effective methods:

1. Offer fantastic content: People want to receive emails with good quality content that they can’t get elsewhere. Offering exclusive articles, promotions, white papers etc, will encourage people to sign up
2. Create (and test) call to actions: Don’t just say ‘Sign Up To Our Newsletter’ – you need to tell people why they should sign up. What can they expect to receive? What are the benefits of signing up? How often will they receive an email from you? People are hesitant to give their email details out nowadays, so you need to aliviate any fears they may have. Something like ‘For weekly marketing hints and tips as well as exclusive offers, sign up to our newsletter’ is better since it provides more information
3. Make sure you have a call to action button placed prominently on your key web pages: It’s important that you give people multiple call to actions on your website. Not everyone will be at the buying stage, so offering alternatives like a newsletter registration can be an effective secondary call to action. Place this on your key pages, ideally above the fold
4. Create an easy registration process: There is NOTHING worse than deciding that you want to register for a newsletter, then being forced to complete a huge long form with a dozen, irrelevant details. If you want visitors to register for your weekly email newsletter – what information do you need from them? The bare minimum is just their email address, that’s all you actually need. And nine out of ten times, that’s all you should ask for. For a fantastic example of what NOT to do, visit http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/, click on ‘Register for our newsletter’ and just look at what information they want! This is a bad example, but by no means the worse! If you’ve seen worse, let us know by leaving a comment below.
5. Ask people to register at the point of conversion: If you have people buying items online or contacting you in some other way, think about asking them to register for your newsletter at that point. At the checkout ask them if they want to regsiter for your weekly newsletter, or if they’ve just completed a contact form, think about asking them to register as part of your ‘thank you’ page. If people are at the stage where they’re making contact with you willingly, there’s a good chance they’re open to receiving more information from you in the future
6. Add a ‘Forward to a friend’ link: This is a great way of building up your list. There’s nothing better than a referal from a happy customer.If one email reader likes your content, there’s a good chance they’ll know someone else who will too. Having a ‘Forward to a friend’ link placed in a prominent place within your email is sometimes all you need to prompt people to forward on.

To find out more about the benefits and best practice uses of email marketing, read:

• Email Marketing and the Long Arm of the Law!
• Top Ten Mistakes of Email Marketing
• Top Five Uses of Email Marketing
• Email Marketing for Small Businesses

Or visit our SMEketing Email Marketing Tool page.

• Super low cost
• Super fast
• Super flexible
• Super instant reporting and analysis

So email marketing really is super. But do you know what isn’t so super? Being given a £1000 fine for not complying with the Companies Act 1985. Now I bet you’re thinking  “1985?! Email wasn’t even around in 1985, how can there be legislation made up about something that didn’t even (commercially) exist!?”. Well the Companies Act 1985 has been updated on a regular basis I’m afraid, and was last updated in June 2010.

Companies Act 1985 and Email Marketing:

If your business is a private or public limited company or a Limited Liability Partnership, the Companies Act 1985 requires all of your business emails to include the following details in legible characters:

• Your company’s registered name (e.g. XYZ Ltd)
• Your company registration number;
• Your place of registration (e.g. Scotland or England & Wales); and
• Your registered office address

This information should also appear on letterheads, forms and your website.

It is not enough to just have this as a link in your email, pointing to the relevant page on your website. You must include something like:

Super Organisation Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 1234567. Registered office: Super House, 21 Super Street, London, SE1 1AA.

The fine is enforced by Trading Standards and can also come with a £300 a day fine for each day you do not rectify the situation.

If you aren’t email marketing at the moment, but want to find out more about it, get in touch with us – call 023 8083 7271 or email info@SMEketing.com. We have a fully comprehensive email marketing tool – read this blog post for more details, or visit our Email Marketing services page.

1. Blogging: Setting up a blog can be completely free! Yes, we love anything free. But like most freebies, in order for it to be effective you need to plan it well and invest your time into it. Using free blog providers like WordPress and Google Blogger are great ways of getting involved in the blogging world, without costing you a penny. There are so many different benefits of blogging, one of the biggest benefits is to your websites ranking in the search engines (aka Search Engine Optimisation - SEO): Google loves new and unique content. Blogging is a great way to constantly add new content to your site. Plus your posts will be tagged and full of relevant keyword. Blog well and others in your industry may link to you, increasing the number of valuable inbound links. For more on the benefits of blogging, read this post: Blogging – just for teenagers, or good for your small business?

2. Twitter: Again, another freebie! Twitter is great for promoting what you do and learning about latest industry trends. By joining the conversation and providing useful information, you will soon generate a loyal base of followers. Use Twitter to answer questions relevant to your industry, learn about new goings on, promote your product, events and news (but don’t be pushy). For more information on using Twitter to promote your small business, read these blog posts: Twitter: Small Business Success Stories – Will yours be one of them? and Guide to Getting Your Small Business Started on Twitter

3. Email Marketing: Email marketing can cost as little as 1p per recipient and £5 per mailshot (well, those are the rates for using a self managed SMEketing Email Marketing solution, but we like to think these are pretty competitive!). If you don’t have time to maintain a close working relationship with your customer base, email marketing is a great, cost effective way of keeping them updated with your latest news, products and offers. Email marketing can also be used as a lead generation tool. Send out well targeted mailshots to relevant recipients and you will find visits to your web site go up, and conversion rates increase. For more information on the benefits of email marketing read this blog post: Email Marketing for Small Businesses

4. Google AdWords: These unfortunately are not free (we wish!), but you completely control your budget. If you only have £10 a day to spend, that’s fine! Make sure you get the most from your budget by using relevant keywords, focused adverts with a strong call to action, and a well thought-through landing page. Google AdWords can be a great way of driving relevant traffic to your site, and the results are completely measurable. If something isn’t working, you know straight away. This is why AdWords are one of the most cost effective advertising mediums out there. Add Conversion Tracking to your adverts and you’ll be able to see exactly what ad’s are providing the highest conversion rate once visitors are on your site. Once you know that, you can direct your budget to keywords and adverts that are giving you the highest Return on Investment (ROI).

5. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):You know I said Google AdWords weren’t free, well there is a way that you can get Google to promote your site FOR FREE! How? Improve your website’s ranking for relevant keywords, and Google will display your site in their search results – free of charge! But again, this is something that will take an investment in your time. Make sure your website is well designed – good navigation, lots of keyword rich content, no broken links, good use of anchor text in your links, etc… Once that is done, you need to boost the number of high quality inbound links. Go to Yahoo and type “linkdomain:yourcompany.com -site:yourcompany.com” to see the number of your inbound links. Do the same for your competitors and see how you compare. Next create a plan to increase the number of incoming links – sign up to relevant directories, promote your blog, create great content on your site that people want to link to. Links should be from high quality sites – link farms are NOT GOOD! The page giving you a link should have few other outgoing links on the same page, and the anchor text should be optimised to promote what you do, not necessarily your business name. An example of a good link to SMEketing would be: “SMEketing is a fantastic source for small business marketing advice and services.” The anchor text here tells Google that the link (www.SMEketing.com) is relevant to “small business marketing”. If the anchor text fell on the business name, it would just tell Google that “SMEketing” is relevant to www.SMEketing.com – which to be fair, it probably had figured out anyway!
Read here for more SEO tips: Top 10 SEO Mistakes Your Small Business Should Avoid

If you want to learn more about any of the above marketing strategies, please get in touch. At SMEketing we’re experienced in all these marketing mediums and have seen first hand the benefits when small businesses employ such tactics.

Why use Email Marketing?

Well, it works. Actually, works is an understatement. Based on research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing is predicted to return an incredible £25 for every pound spent in 2007. To put this in perspective, that’s more than double the average return for other forms of online marketing and more than 6 times the return from print catalogs.

Why does email marketing work?

• It’s cost effective – While the cost of actually designing your email creative can be comparable to direct mail, the big savings start when you consider there are no printing costs and you can get your message delivered for around 2p per recipient.
• It’s immediate – Email generates an immediate response, instead of waiting for a subscriber to visit your site you can get your message to them when it counts. The majority of your recipients will see your message in the first 24-48 hours.
• It’s relevant – Email makes it easy to segment your subscribers using a variety of criteria like demographics and past campaign behaviour (such as clicking a certain link). This way you can ensure your message goes to the individuals most likely to be interested in your offer.
• It’s completely measureable – More than any other form of marketing, email can provide actionable data on the results it generates. Keep track of who opened your email and when, what topics they were interested in, who forwarded it on to a friend, how many sales were generated and much more.

With the SMEketing Email Marketing Tool, we make the process of email marketing very simple while giving you the most advanced features available from any email marketing system.

 The SMEketing Email Marketing tool has these features and benefits:    

• Personalization: Make it personal by inserting your subscribers name or the last product they purchased.
• Forward to a friend: Let your recipients spread the word virally and track the results.
• Only pay when you send: Simple pricing that means you only pay when you send, no monthly or hidden fees.
• Send at any time: Full control over when your recipients will receive your campaigns.
• Free campaign archive: Add a line of code to your website for a full archive that automatically updates.
• Powerful reports: Track the opens, clicks, forwards, unsubscribes, bounces and more.
• No ugly logos or links: We never insert our own logo or links.
• Top notch deliverability: Authentication, relationships with ISP’s and more ensure your emails are delivered.

Get in touch if you want your business to start reaping the benefits of high quality email marketing campaigns!