Update Your Digital Marketing Strategies

NY Report recently held the 2011 Sales & Marketing Playbook Conference, sponsored by Constant Contact. Five experts spoke over a series of three breakout sessions at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury, NY. Here are a few takeaways from the event.

Use Your Website to Level the Playing Field

During his talk on getting buyers to your website, Andrew Hazen, founder of Prime Visibility, spoke about how your company can compete with larger businesses through SEO, paid search management, and social media. “You can level the playing field and compete with big name companies if you know what you’re doing,” he said.

According to Hazen, every day more than two billion searches take place online. Ninety-three percent of people use search engines instead of typing in direct links, and 95 percent of search engine users don’t go beyond page two of the search results. “If you’re not there, your competitors are,” he said. Hazen offered a few options to make sure your website is doing its best to draw in potential clients:

Search Engine Optimization

• Make sure your search engine optimization is up to scratch. Use Google’s free keyword tool (which can be found using a Google search) to make sure your website’s keywords are appropriate. “Who cares if you rank for something no one searches for?” asked Hazen.
• Use search engine friendly URLs. Every page on your site should have a unique, search-appropriate URL name, such as mysportsshop.com/tennisracquets, instead of mysportsshop.com/page2.
• Every title tag should be unique. Put the most important keywords in the  front of the title tag, followed by your brand name, such as “Tennis Racquets – MySportsShop.Com”, instead of simply “MySportsShop.com”.
• Don’t take down dead pages. Instead, have your web developer create a custom 404 file not found page and drive traffic back to other pages on your site.

Paid Search Management

• Paid search advertisements offer your company the opportunity to drive traffic based on a specific stage in the buying cycle. You can customize them with a time sensitive message and location and they offer instant visibility.
• You can also customize your budget for paid search advertisements, based on the time period or amount of money spent.
• Link your paid ad to a specific, well designed, relevant landing page.

Social Media

• Pick a few social media outlets and commit to them, rather than casually testing the waters with everything.
• Have something important to say, and listen to others.

Overall, make sure your website has fresh, engaging content that changes as much as possible. “Content is king. The more content you have on your website the better off you are,” said Hazen. “Once you get complacent, you’re not going to grow.”

Email Marketing to Help Your Business Connect, Inform, and Grow

Ellen DePasquale, regional development director for Constant Contact, shared three ways that email marketing can benefit your company. According to DePasquale, although 61 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 64 use social media, 94 percent use email, making email an ideal way to build relationships.

Connect with Existing Clients

Existing customers are the best source of new business, and gaining a customer costs six to seven times as much as retaining one. Concentrate on your existing clients, who are already fans of your business, by sending them email newsletters.

The aim of newsletters is to deliver a professional email containing valuable information to an interested audience. “You should never be getting email marketing from someone you don’t know,” DePasquale said. Make sure you abide by the CAN-SPAM Act, and deliver on the expectations you’ve promised.

To build your email newsletter list, DePasquale suggests putting a subscription link in your email signature, phoning past customers, adding an option in your website’s guest book, and promoting it through your online presence. On your signup page, include a logo and a description of the emails, including the content and the frequency your subscribers should expect. When they sign up, it’s best practice to automatically respond with an introductory email that contains a confirmation link. A professional email marketing company can guide you through setting up subscription options.

Use Valuable Content to Inform

In your email newsletters, share your expertise, give guidance, offer discounts, and, if appropriate, hold contests. Place your most valuable and interesting content at the top of the email. “No matter how great the information is at the bottom, people aren’t going to scroll,” said DePasquale. Call your audience to action with links, phone numbers, and important additional information. Your email newsletter provider should offer an option to share your email’s content through social media.

For effective emails, keep subject lines short and simple, avoid spam speak, and include the name of your business in the “From” field. Depending on your market, when you send your email may affect its open rates, which ideally should be between 20 and 30 percent. According to DePasquale, Sunday nights are most appropriate for CEOs, people using personal email addresses check their email during the evenings, and most shares on Facebook happen on Saturdays.

Use Statistics to Grow Your Customer Base

Your email newsletter provider should supply tracking and reporting tools, which you can use to monitor your emails’ statistics. Analyze your open rates to spot trends and adjust your content accordingly. You can also manage your bounces and delete email addresses from your list that no longer exist.