Hot Tips On Email Marketing Campaign Content

October 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Email Marketing

Have you thought about how much time you are willing to spend sifting through your own Email? If you have, you know that you have a very short window of opportunity to capture your reader’s interest.

  • Keep your subject line to about 60 characters. Short and sweet! Include topic and possibly the issue if it’s a series.
  • Consider that the key calls to action should be present in the top 2 to 4 inches or top 300 pixels of the email (above the fold) — that is the average size of preview panes in email clients.
  • Personalize the emails — your email service provider should allow you tools to do this easily.
  • Keep your content clear, concise and well written (always proofread!)
  • Use a strong call to action.
  • Use lots of white space — eyes tire faster reading from a computer monitor than a printed piece.
  • Use a standard font size — going smaller to fit more content is not a good idea if it dissuades the subscriber from reading the article.
  • Use links strategically and make them one click that goes straight to the intended destination.
  • Always perform quality assurance on your HTML before sending the campaign.

As mentioned in a previous article, “What You Should Know About Boosting Your Brand with Email Marketing”, not every email client deciphers HTML design in the same way. Email clients are much more sensitive about rendering HTML than web browsers are for rendering web pages. Your email campaign may look great when you open it in your Outlook account but that doesn’t mean it looks the same for someone using GMail. That is why it’s important to go with an Email Service Provider who will allow you to test it BEFORE sending! At Original Ginger we have professional designers who can take this worry from your shoulders……. we design your branded templates, and you are able to test not only design but also check your content against spam filters.

This is just one article in a series on Email Marketing and small business. At Original Ginger, Email Marketing is part of what we do. We’re happy to provide these services for you. Give us a call at 778.298.1966.

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Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

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Make the Most of Your Blog Posts With Social Media

September 24, 2012 By 1 Comment

Make the Most of Your Blog Posts With Social Media

 

So you’ve created your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). You’ve set up your easily remembered branded usernames and you have left your info unpublished until you’re finished entering all of your content. We recommend that you now set up your blog to automatically stream your posts from your blog to your social media accounts. On Facebook you can have it stream to both your personal profile and business pages; but at the very least it should stream through to your business page.

Why stream your blog through to Social Media ?

  • It creates fresh, relevant and interesting content for existing customers following you
  • It may engage new potential customers
  • It creates brand awareness
  • It drives traffic to your website
  • For Facebook in particular, when inbound links are relevant it boosts the page rank.

There are quite a few applications you can use to stream your blog through to social media. The  two applications we recommend are Networked blogs and RSS Graffiti.

Here’s how Networked Blogs works for Facebook (you can also follow suit with LinkedIn and Twitter):

  • Login to your personal profile
  • Start typing ‘Networked Blogs’ in the search box at the top of the page — you’ll see the application pop up
  • Select the application and follow the prompts to create your account
  • Select ‘Register A Blog’
  • When you are prompted “Are you the author of ‘Name of Blog’” – respond YES and select NEXT
  • When you are prompted to “Verify ownership of the blog” you will be provided with 2 choices (a) Ask Friends to Verify You (b) Use Widget to Verify Ownership — Select one of the options. If you have a WordPress website you can easily place a widget on your website yourself. That is the easiest method. If you don’t have content management access to your website, you’ll have to use the verification method. TIP: The message to verify does NOT go to the verifier’s inbox. Unless they are looking for it they may not see the request on their profile page in the notifications area.
  • When you are done with set up, you will begin to see new posts flow through to your Facebook business page.

Blog articles display as an excerpt on your page. To read the full article visitors can click on ‘Full Article’ and it will take them directly to your blog — driving traffic to your website where people can check out your services and products while they are there.

Here’s how RSS Graffiti works for Facebook:

  • Login to your personal profile
  • Start typing ‘RSS Graffiti’ in the search box at the top of the page — you’ll see the application pop up (screenshot below)
  • Select the application and follow the prompts to create your account
  • Set up is much more simplified than with the networked blogs application.

As you build your following on social media, new followers will be able to read your blog posts. If the information engages them enough they will share it with their friends. If you don’t have a blog, you should think about adding one to your website. It’s a great way to provide fresh content and engage new potential customers.

This is one of many articles we’ve written about social media and how you can use it for your business.

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Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

 
 

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Blog Posts – An Easy Way to Boost Your SEO!

September 10, 2012 By 1 Comment

Blog Posts - An Easy Way to Boost Your SEO!

 

A blog allows you to share information with your readers in a more informal way. With our ‘Fresh Ginger’ blog we provide tips, tools and resources we think will be of value to our readers. Information covered in your blog will depend on who is writing it, what type of business you own and your brand personality.

There are many benefits for businesses to have a blog as follows:

  • Blogging can help create brand awareness and demonstrate your areas of expertise
  • Blogging offers a network opportunity with relevant complimentary businesses when you invite them to participate as guest writers. Reciprocal links between you can ultimately boost Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
  • Blogging is a great way to engage potential clients by allowing a place for comment
  • Consistent blogging means fresh content for SEO
  • Fresh blog articles give visitors a reason to return to your website at a later date, reminding them of your services or products.

How Blogs Work

A blog is typically set up to list articles (referred to as posts) in ascending order — the freshest, newest posts at the top and the oldest moving down the page.  Since most of the other pages on your website are fairly static information, a blog is a way to attract the search engines, given that content is updated frequently and consistently.

Get The Word Out

There are many ways to get the word out about your blog, and subsequently your website:

  • Provide links to interested parties in forums. Make sure that the information is relevant and useful to the audience — it’s about informing and sharing information.
  • Set up your blog to automatically stream through to your social media profiles;
  • Provide share buttons on your blog to make it easier for others to share your information via social media and email;
  • Network with other bloggers and reciprocate links.
  • Include blog links in your newsletter. Share specific post topics to segmented subscriber lists based on their interests.

Blogs Boost Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

  • Encourage people to share your blog posts everywhere — the more links you have out there in cyberspace the more the search engines will recognize and find you.
  • Write blog articles including links that track to other related articles you’ve written — search engines like this!
  • When someone searches for a specific topic using keywords contained in your blog content, the search engines will find it.

The time and energy it takes to write blog articles is time well spent in the long term. It’s about sharing information and building a rapport with your audience. If you don’t have the time to write the articles yourselves there are many agencies like ours who can provide copy writing expertise — so don’t let that stop you.

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Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

 
 

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Social Media Domino Effect For Business

April 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

social media

Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | LinkedIn

One thing is certain in the world of social media – tools will change. Right now, the tools listed above are hot, hot, hot! But don’t get too hooked into counting on any one. Does this mean you shouldn’t use any of these tools to grow your business – nope. Does it mean you shouldn’t put in the time to learn how to use them effectively – nope. It just means, that you need to adapt your business tools to your marketing plan as quickly as technology adapts to marketplace trends. You need to reach your audience wherever they may be as effectively as possible!

Social Media Goals

There are many reasons why YOU as a business owner SHOULD be using the hottest social media tools:

  • To create awareness of your products/services
  • To engage and connect with potential clients
  • To inform and empower your current clients
  • To demonstrate confidence in your services/products
  • To provide an avenue for past and current clients to be advocates of your products/services, making it easy for them to refer you to their friends and business associates
  • To find strong resources for your business by connecting with like-minded business owners
  • To network with other business owners who offer complimentary services to your own
  • To show your support for other business services and products you believe in (perhaps, you can cross link to one another’s websites or blogs) and retweet each other’s promotions
  • To share info about upcoming events of interest to your followers
  • To direct traffic to your website and create SEO (search engine optimization) opportunities.

Using Social Media Collectively

Use the tools available to you in tandem with one another.

For example, once this post is ‘ready for publishing’ we use Twitter to post it to our followers, and our Twitter profile is automatically set up to post to our Facebook profile. Voila – in one click! Now, our followers can ‘retweet’ or ‘repost’ to all of their friends and business associates if they find our post interesting and informative.

  • List all of your social media accounts on your official website and vice versa. We do it because we want to engage potential clients in conversations about how we can help their business. We feel confident in the services we offer and we want to shout it out to the world – don’t you?!
  • Set up Networked Blogs, RSS Graffiti or something similar so that your blog articles stream to your Linkedin profile automatically.
  • Use plug-ins and bookmarks on your blog and/or website to make it easy for readers to ‘share’, ‘tweet’, and ‘post’, your latest information to their own profiles with one click.
  • Consistent tweeting and blogging is an easy, quick, and affordable way to always have fresh new information on your website that gives people a reason to return there again and again.

This article only scratches the surface of what social media can do for you if it is used strategically. We recommend that you have a digital marketing plan in place first, complete with goals, timelines, tactics, recommended vehicles (digital tools including social media) and delegated service providers where necessary. Having a schedule in place identifies specific checkpoints where you are able to measure progress and adjust your plan as you go. Your success depends on it!

This is the first in a series of articles about social media. Interested in other articles from ‘Fresh Ginger’? Subscribe now so topics are delivered straight to your inbox.

Original Ginger is a Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC.

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