There is no easy way to make sure your emails get opened and your audience buys your products, however using our tips will make sure you improve every step of the way until you achieve astounding results!

Choose clarity over style
You won’t convert most of your subscribing audience with complicated sentences and complex metaphors. Your message should be easy to understand and easy to skim read.

The first step is to request an invite and go through the registration process.

JOIN

It can take up to 2 weeks to get “invited” to Pinterest after requesting an invite, however once you receive it the registration process is very simple, just use Facebook or Twitter. And if you’re embarking on Social Media marketing yourself pay extra attention. The whole invite-registration process is pure marketing genius. Free yet exclusive! You can’t resist trying it can you?

CREATE A BOARD

Creating a Board is Easy, Just click ADD+ and choose board. Before naming your Boards make sure you have a plan! Name your board and start pinning.

PIN

If you’re on Pinterest to push your business, make sure you plan your pins and especially make sure you pin the best imagery or videos available to you. Always include links in your pins and a detailed but short description.

Here are some examples of what different businesses may pin:

- Hotels -> Pin beautiful location shots of the destination you re promoting, great food shots of your restaurants, moody professional shots of dream moments in your hotel rooms, pools, spas etc

- Importers / Retail-> If you import well established brands that have been around for along time, Pin the history of your Brand’s labels, adverts or even celebrities associated with your brand. Less known Brands can use logical categories, Recipes with associated products etc

- Property Negotiators -> Pin our properties best shots (of course), but also amenities within close distance, happy neighbours, car spaces, and a picture of the agent selling it.

- Business to Business -> Pin your service offering range (ideally in the form of icons) and any other eye-candy that also delivers your ethos as a company. The business to business is very much like match-making; its all about being able to make things happen together. Conveying what you’re like in imagery can be a fantastic way of introducing yourself in seconds.

Make sure your pins tell a story!

Re-PIN

Re-Pinning other people’s pins by hovering on the left corner of the image and clickingthe re-pin button will send an email to the person who pinned it in the first place. If you want someone to notice you, re–pin their pins!

FOLLOW & MEASURE

Follow other pinners as a way of reciprocating their follows, thank people for following by re-pinning their pins. Be curteous and interact as much as possible, at all times.

Keep track of the number of follows and re-pins you get and add more re-pinneable content, your audience will guide you, so make sure you watch them closely!

The wonders of this not so new but very recent social media fad called Pinterest are many, wonderful in its simplicity Pinterest is taking the world by storm. Finally Pinterest provides a social medium that glamourises unglamorous domestic products to an audience that is actually really interested.

For both companies and Brands, Pinterest is a godsend: It’s the only social medium in which domestic product content has built-in relevance and an audience that wants it. Every-day brands and products are highly relevant on Pinterest if they can provide the right visuals… say goodbye to mediocre photography because professional eye candy has made the digital jump and landed safely on Pinterest. 

Finally a medium where the Brand and the Product are the stars, facebook’s fan pages attempted to give their audience a tool to associate with the Brand. Fan pages do a pretty good job, but the star is never the brand its always the facebook user. On pinterest thisngs are a little different. Not only is the Brand Star but the photography and branding of the vast majority of items on Pinterest is of very high quality. This sends out a clear message, people like quality brands and want to be associated with them… and what’s more Pinterest provides an easy tool for them to indulge in it.

Pinterest really weeds out the men from the boys. There is no place for mediocrity here. Ultimately it’s an age old tradition to pin things up, but of course you’d only ever pin up things you love looking at and are happy to share. There’s only room for the best on Pinterest and the mileage you can get from its viral effect can work wonders for your business’ exposure (at no cost!).

It’s time to ditch your brother “photographer” and cousin “designer” and spruce up your site with professional Branding, Imagery and Design ready to be pinned!
Ask for an invite today and start pinning. You’ll love the eye candy.

For me this is a simpler stumbleupon just as it was becoming more complex. I’m already totally addicted!

Wondering what Pinterest can do for you? Read the next post:  Pinterest Marketing for businesses in 5 Easy Steps

Email marketing is so common these days however let’s face it most of the emails we receive as end users are either spammy, amateurish or simply do not deliver what they promise.

Here are a few pointers to start you off on a successful email marketing campaign:

• Avoid becoming spam: be very careful in your setup and approach, being perceived as a spammer may ruin your online reputation.
• Customise and Brand your mail-shots to look like your company website
• Include social media buttons in all your newsletters
• Share your newsletter on all social mediums
• Include the unsubscribe link (it’s illegal not to)
• Collect data and statistics about open rates and conversions in order to measure your ROI. Take time to measure feedback from the various target groups, strategise and know what you need to measure. What can be measured can be improved.
• Write different tailored emails to different target groups
• Collect feedback about your newsletters by means of survey tools
• Learn how to write successful headlines and copy
• Create consistent professional landing pages and squeeze pages to turn interested parties into a purchasing clients

Above all do your research to make sure you choose the right tool for your requirements. If in doubt ask a professional, but get this one right and half the work’s done!

Updates to the Google Algorithm

After much research and blog-hopping I was left with a certain sense of bewilderment at what people actually deem important about their online presence. Google has tried to connect with its audience thanks to it’s new official blog but if you ask me, it is still far too technical for most internet-savvy closet technophobes. Hence the chasm between what Google is doing and what people think Google is doing.

So here’s what Google is out to do… of course their main objective is for you to find more relevant results more quickly so..

1. Th algorithm now favours high-quality sites. This sounds obvious but what matters (and what changes) here is the definition of high-quality content. Here’s the definition Google gives on the official blog “high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

So basically it seems advantageous to concentrate on creating valuable online content that people are looking for, so nothing new there.

2. The algorithm penalises websites with too many adverts above the fold (in the main window upon loading). It is not clear how this will affect sites as it also has an impact on the number of images. Anything beyond 3 adverts is overkill according to Google however it is not yet clear whether this includes all the images as Google still has difficulty recognising which images are ads and which aren’t.

In the official blog Google says that “Sites using pop-ups, pop-unders or overlay ads are not impacted by this. It only applies to static ads in fixed positions on pages themselves.” This is strange because websites with pop-ups are, in most cases, more annoying to Google users than websites with static ads.

3. The new changes are however also affecting advertising spend. If you have a website and need to sell more online, then Google is encouraging you to shift all or most of your spending online. The new algorithm favours companies and websites that have a strong social presence. This has diminished the importance of direct traffic generation through radio and TV advertising which used to boost your ranking over time. The emphasis has now moved to companies with strong social presence, of course Google+ will play a big role in this in the future because it means that Google decides which social platforms give you more weight/relevance. It is however also a fact that in order to keep people happy Facebook has to feature quite heavily.

However it’s going to be interesting to watch how the changes evolve in the next few months and ultimately how these results will effect what we find and how we find it.

One thing we know for sure is that content is King (and Quality Queen!) more than ever before, of course somewhere along the line Google also checks how relevant your content is to your domain and overall website so make sure all content is good quality and relevant.

Facebook Statistics :: Men vs Women

• 130 Friends

The average person has 130 friends on facebook for both men and women.

• 55% more wall posts

Women have 55% more posts on their wall which means that women get talked to more

• 31% of Facebook users say they re single

However more men say they re single than women. More women say they are married or in a relationship.

Makes you think doesn’t it, I shall refrain from comment on this one though since it’s quite obvious which side I’m on.

Here are some statistics from 2011 that will help answer your day to day social media questions:

Right, so you learnt how to plan and measure your return on investment, you planned all the topics and time involved, you’re rearing to go but the little daily questions leave you lost and confused.

 How often do I post?

Statistics show that any more than 1 post every 2 days will decrease your feedback. There are exceptions though, like radio stations where people want to know what s on air and participate in competitions.

What words are more socially shareable?

The most shared words on Facebook for 2011 were (in order of popularity)

- Facebook
- Why?
- Most
- World
- How?
- Health

This shows that people on Facebook are actually very interested in facebook, statistics (the most watched movies, most viewed posts etc), the world in general and How to do things. Use these words in your titles or status!

Which day is the best to post on?

According to most social media specialists the best days to post are Monday for business to business and Thursday for Business to Client however statistics show that the best day for posting is actually Saturday.

Recession Marketing

What should I DO MORE OF during an economic slow-down?

1.  Build cross-marketing relationships with a as many other businesses as possible.
This will open you up to new markets with minimal advertising spend. For example if you sell jewellery you may want to partner with a wedding dress shop for mutual benefit.

2.  Take advantage of any free media publicity.
Getting an article published in papers or blog article shared online will give you Brand mileage without any spend! You will not be able to advertise your company blatantly but hard sell is best avoided anyway.

3.  Track, measure, and evaluate all paid advertising concentrate both on immediate feedback and long term results. Use cheaper strategies that give you more mileage and make sure you get the most from your touch points. For example spending less on TV bookings and spreading your TV Adverts through Social Media will give you more free coverage without further spend minimising your financial outlay.

What should I AVOID during an economic slow-down?

1.   Do not stop marketing: Economic downturns are the best time to stand out more while spending less.
Staying active in marketing while others pull back will help you gain market-share even though it may not increase profits in the short run due to reduced spend, it is sure to boost your business faster once things start recovering. It’s an opportunity to stand out. So make best use of it. Experienced business owners know to stay present in the media during hard times.

2.  Avoid over-spending: Of course avoid this always! However an economic crisis usually calls for businesses to channel their marketing into more cost-effective strategies. This may mean outsourcing a service previously done in-house or looking for alternative more cost-effective suppliers. Shifting your focus on cheaper marketing alternatives like Social Media marketing also helps.

3. Do not invest in advertising strategies if you cannot Measure your ROI (Return on Investment) from it.
Do not invest in marketing strategies that do not allow you to measure ROI or are untrackable. Make sure that your marketing plan includes measurement strategies for every campaign. This means you will be less likely to make mistakes and waste precious marketing money when it is thin on the ground.