Have you ever seen one of those signs that sometimes appear at bus stops that simply read “You’ve Just Proved Signs Work”?

I personally find them irritating; I hate being outwitted by plastic benches. However, there is no doubt that they quickly make their point; and the point is indisputable. By looking at the darn thing you have proved –at least to yourself- that advertising on a plastic bus stop bench works.

Would you mind if I applied the same principle to this particular article?

(Monty Python’s famous ‘Spam’ Sketch)

So, if the smart-alec plastic bench irritates me so much, why am I about to use it to make my own point? Well, to be honest, it just seemed like a logical place to start.

You are proof that newsletters work.

Sure, there will always be a certain percentage of recipients that will never open this newsletter. Heck, some of them will even throw it away mistaking this carefully crafted labor of love for spam. This doesn’t mean that it is, of course, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I have to consider it as such either. Why should you consider branching your marketing efforts out to reach in to people’s inboxes?

Believe me, there are many good reasons for doing so…..

Visibility

Get yourself seen!

Sending out an e-newsletter gently reminds people of your presence. By simply seeing the name of your business listed in their inbox, the recipient is encouraged to remember the great customer service that they experienced when they dealt with you or the quality of the product that they purchased from you. It’s good to jump start these memories and obviously it’s even better if they are enticed to open and read the contents of your e-newsletter.

Customers can be loyal, but their memories are short and who can blame them? In the mind of the average consumer you are competing with around 3,000 different adverts for various products and services every single day. A simple e-newsletter creates a personal connection. It’s not only informative, it says “Hello, remember us?”, and in the time that it’s read or simply acknowledged, it places you and your product ahead of the rest.

Brand Continuity

In my humble opinion, every business should consider their brand. Even the smallest start-up business is a brand. It should be taken seriously and treated with respect; the business world would be a much more interesting and attractive place if every entrepreneur took this advice!

These days it’s pretty typical for an e-newsletter to be designed to match the appearance of the sender’s brand - a kind of smooth, seemingly effortless extension of the business’s identity. This is known as Brand Continuity and it’s important. It is said that a person must be exposed to a new product 5-9 times before they consider purchasing it. While I accept that this consideration may not apply to a small local business in a small town with little to no direct competition, I think that we, as consumers, have evolved to read certain signals and have cognitively learned to respond to them, almost unwittingly.

Brand continuity is comfortable for most of us and it’s something that we subliminally recognize, whether we like it or not! E-newsletters, if designed properly, can really contribute to the type of professional public image that will win you customers and sales.

Complimentary Promotion

E-newsletters can certainly give your marketing efforts a bit more leverage. Do you have a special promotion coming up? Maybe there’s an event that your business will be involved in? Brilliant, but you obviously need as many people to know about it as possible. Include this information in your newsletter, throw in some relevant links to your website or to the organiser’s website, go ahead - include some pictures.

One of the reasons that e-newsletters are so effective is that once someone opens the page, they become a fully engaged reader. It’s up to you to keep their attention and if you succeed, your event or promotion will enjoy increased traffic!

Analytics

Most e-newsletter services provide all kinds of glitzy and incredibly useful analytical tracking tools that allow you to see how your email campaign has performed at a glance. By simply clicking around in the control panel you’ll be able to discover how many recipients opened your email, clicked a link, unsubscribed or forwarded your email to a friend. In some cases you will even be able identify this activity to each individual recipient. This, of course, is very nosey, but when it comes down to the important business of return on investment, it’s an incredibly smart thing to get involved in.

On a more advanced level, these tools can tell you who opened your e-newsletter, who clicked where, who bounced and who unsubscribed. You can even search for a specific subscriber to see exactly what they did with your email.

There you go - you have a few good reasons to go and embark upon your own e-newsletter campaign. Now you will need to know how to go about doing it successfully. Luckily for you, I have a few tips to get you started. 

Keep it Interesting

It’s really important to keep the content relevant and informative. When necessary, use images to back up your subject matter or charts to support your statements. If you want people to visit your location, tell them why and if you need to communicate developments within your industry make it clear what these specific developments are. Most of all give your readers some information that they can use.

Be Yourself

This is your opportunity to talk to as many potential customers as possible, so make it count! Use your charm and don’t try to be overly clever. Try to remember that every time you send out a newsletter, you are placing yourself on a pedestal; people are looking, so try not to fall off! If possible, make it humorous but always make it readable. Find a writing style that you are comfortable with and keep with it.

Decide Upon Your Subject….

… and stick to it! You will have something to say. Try not to digress too much and deliver your point accurately. Interest will wane when your readers decide that the content is becoming vague or lacking in discipline and direction.

Include Other Points of Reference

Point your readers to other related sources that you find interesting (but obviously not those of your competitors….. duh!) Chances are, if you find it interesting, most of your customers will too. Ideally, you should consider providing links to websites that offer news related to your specific industry or relevant blogs that you follow. This will help to create a little micro-ecosystem for your readers, enabling them to really absorb the various aspects of your industry and/or your product offer.

You love what you do. You have a motivation to get up in the morning and to stride into your day with the mindset to do your best. All of this is down to a single moment in the past where something sparked within you, where you felt the need to make a living out of something that you enjoy. If you can take yourself back to that moment of enthusiasm, try to remember what it was all about. With an e-newsletter, you can share your enthusiasm for your business with your customers. It’s a great way to sell your services and/or products while building brand recognition and client loyalty. Best of all, the whole thing is completely and utterly measurable!

Article written and conceived by Michael Crow, Creative Director at Divine Designs.ca

Do you currently own a website?

If you do then you will agree that traffic is the most important aspect related to the success of your online representation. If harnessed correctly, Search Engine Marketing is arguably one of the more effective ways to increase the amount of traffic flowing towards your website. There are two methods that will strongly effect your position amongst the most popular search engines: PPC (Pay per Click) andSEO (Search Engine Optimization).

So, do you know the difference between these two search orientated options? Have you been offered either of them before? Are you currently using one of these or both? It may not seem like a blinding amount of choice; one option for each of your hands. Besides, social media and content marketing offer a far wider spectrum of packages/choices/dead-end roads that seem to dazzle and confuse the regular punter in equal measure.

Relatively speaking, selecting which search engine marketing method to go with should be a snip.

Right?

Well, Websauce says that it is, but only if you know how to decide which one is best for your campaign. When it comes to enticing visitors to your website; both are effective methods, but one method can work very well within certain circumstances and work appallingly in another. It’s all about understanding that, to succeed with either method, or with both of them, it really helps to know the strengths and limitations of PPC and SEO so they can be applied correctly to gain optimum results.

SEO refers to a collection of methods and tools that can be combined together to propel a particular website to the dizzy heights of page one of a popular search engine like Google, which incidentally accounts for roughly 400 million searches per day. An SEO campaign will typically consist of the following elements:

• Keyword Research
• ‘Alt Tags’ in titles and other prominent areas.
• Special background information coded into the site to optimize search visibility of each page on your site.
• Creation of a Google Sitemap.
• Google registration.
• Search Engine Friendly URL’s.
• Website sitemap.
• Tweaking text on a per page basis to include several established keywords.
• Additional on page coding techniques (secret stuff)
• Text readable only by ‘Googlebots’ and other ‘Robots’. (Yes, Robots!)

Pay-per-click marketing is a method of advertising on search engine results pages. Basically, you bid to have your ads appear in the sponsored results when someone types in a query including your keywords.

Why is it named “pay per click”? Because you have to pay for every user who clicks on the ad you are promoting. Popular PPC systems include Google AdWords, Yahoo Advertising, and Facebook’s advertising platform. Niche-specific PPC systems also abound.

SEO will benefit your search marketing under the following circumstances:

• When Long Term, Sustainable Results are Required- The results for this kind of Search Engine Marketing don’t appear overnight and are relatively slow to reveal themselves but if your site manages to attain a good position on the search engines through the implementation of traditional SEO techniques, it will probably continue to enjoy a more sustained level of traffic for many months to come. Furthermore, if the campaign is maintained properly and nurtured your results should remain at their best for a long time, reaping many long term benefits for your business.
• When Your Site is Content Rich- If you own a site that is updated frequently or simply consists of good, keyword rich content then SEO is definitely for you. Search engines love fresh content and well written text (blogs are perfect in this regard). Better still, if the text within your site is relevant to the subject of the page on which it appears (without it being so keyword orientated that it doesn’t make sense!) you will find that things will become rather exciting indeed.
• When You Want to Accurately Measure The Effectiveness of Your SEO Campaign- Advanced analytics make it easier than ever to measure the success of your SEO campaign. The amount of information available to you will generally vary based upon the investment you are prepared to make but making use of the metrics that are available will really give you an edge in the rather crowded online community!
• When You Don’t Particularly Want to be too Involved in the ‘Process’ You hire an SEO specialist to carry out the work for you. In a few weeks the SEO kicks into action. If the SEO plan has been executed properly your traffic will increase, which in turn will improve your rankings yet further. This situation is favourable to a lot of site owners as their ranking organically improves without any additional effort from their good selves. The hard work is left to enthusiastic and knowledgeable folk like us! 

Depending on the thoroughness of work and the level of results demanded, traditional SEO requires a lot of work, time and research on the part of the company or professional that you hire. In the long term however, it is very much worth it.

So, when should you use PPC marketing? Below are some circumstances when PPC would prove highly beneficial for an online business.

• When Immediate Results are Desired- There’s not really any doubt about it; as opposed to SEO, PPC will bring you fast results. This is useful -for example- when you need to launch a product or when you want to promote a special event. However, unlike SEO, PPC requires constant monetary input and although the results will be instantly gratifying, they will come at quite a cost.
• When Highly Targeted Traffic is Sought- With PPC, you can really focus on specific target markets based upon their online activity. Some PPC platforms such as Facebook will allow you to direct your promotion to exact age ranges, income levels and those that have indicated a preference towards the type of products that you sell or, more broadly, your specific industry. Basically, you are directing the right people to your site.
• If You Want to Dominate a Particular Keyword Category- PPC results are displayed above the traditional search results. This prominent position means that the top three sponsored links will appear above all others but in this particular Websauce writer’s humble opinion, these positions don’t always appear to be as fruitful as they appear. I have personally rarely clicked on a sponsored link, I will more often than not go with links from organic search listings.

So, when it comes to Search Marketing, you have a choice. You only have two main options but, as you have read by now, it is very important that the right mode of search engine involvement is made in order for you to really reap the rewards of your investment. Make your decision based upon the type of online operation that you are running, ask yourself what your goals are to be from your Search Marketing campaign and when you’re absolutely sure – go for it!