Email marketing has been around for years, but it’s still one of the best ways to connect with your audience. We’re going to show you how to create emails that work.

Keep It Simple.

The most important thing to remember when creating an email campaign is to keep it simple. Don’t try to cram too much information into each message; instead, focus on providing value to your readers. Be specific with your email message and who it gets sent to for higher open and click rates.

Write Better Subject Lines.

If you want people to open your emails, make sure you write subject lines that will catch their attention. You should use a headline that summarizes what the email contains and includes a call to action (CTA). Try to avoid words like “new”, “today”, “sale”, “click here”, or “sign up now.” These words get filtered as spam frequently.

We’ve found that posing a question and using relevant emojis makes for a great subject line. Try out the free tool at Subject Line Tester from SendCheckIt for help with your next email campaign.

Include Calls to Action.

A CTA is an instruction that tells readers what to do next. It’s usually at the end of an email, so it’s easy for recipients to find. Make sure it’s big, bold, and stands out to the reader.

If you’re looking to create an email campaign that gets results, then you’ll want to include calls to action at the end of every email. These calls to action should be specific and relevant to what you’re offering.

“Buy Now” for links directing users to store pages, or “Book Now” to reserve a table or schedule an appointment. If you’re looking to build a relationship, invite the reader to follow you on social media or to send more details about themselves or what they need. That leads us to the next feature, your opt-in form.

Create an Opt-In Form.

Create a form for your readers to better engage with you. You should make sure that your opt-in form is clear and simple. If people aren’t able to figure out what they need to do to sign up, they won’t bother doing it.

If you want to create an opt-in form for your email campaigns, there are several ways to go about doing so. One option is to use a free service such as MailChimp.com. Another option is to build your own opt-in form using HTML code. You can find instructions for building your own opt-in forms at sites such as HubSpot.com.

Make sure you have options for your customers to opt-out of your list. Services like Mailchimp and Constant Contact take care of that for you.

Add Images or Videos.

Adding images or videos to your email will help keep your message more interesting and engaging. It’ll also give your subscribers something to look at while they wait for your next email.

Make sure you are using the latest image formats, proper image names, alt text and descriptions where applicable. Some misleading media will get filtered, so try your best to avoid that.

Try Canva out if you haven’t already. It’s worth every penny to go Pro.

Test and Use Different Types of Emails.

There are three main types of emails: transactional (for things like receipts, appointment confirmations), promotional (to promote an event or sale), and relationship (to build relationships).

Each type of email requires a different approach. Transactional emails should be short and sweet, so make sure you only send them when necessary. Promotional emails should be longer and contain more detail, because people expect them. Relationship emails should be personal and friendly, as they’re meant to build trust between you and your customers.

Try to make use of all three email types in order to keep in touch with your customers and stay top-of-mind. Automated campaigns based on customer engagement are a great way to stay in touch with customers and inline with their needs.

Emailing your existing customers with relevant information on a  consistent basis is a great way to get started with email campaigns. Take the time to craft your email, buy a template or hire someone like myself to help you get the right email and message to the proper audience.

Until next time.

-Nick

Learn how to leverage social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, Snapchat, and more.

Social media marketing is an effective way to reach new audiences, build brand awareness, and drive traffic to your website. This post will teach you how to use these platforms effectively to promote your business.

Create an Account.

You’ll need to sign up for each platform separately. Some services will blanket create accounts for you, but take the time to build the ones that matter to you.

If you do not have a personal account with any of them, you should create one now. You can use this to manage your business. Buuuutt I have my long time personal Facebook account and I also have a Facebook ads dedicated business manager account to wrangle the 50+ ad accounts I touch each month. Feels better that way, but convenience is a big factor in doing this right.

When applicable create a Business manager Account, like with Facebook, or convert your account to a Business Profile, as is the case with Instagram. These options will give you access to advanced analytics, customer engagement, more post types, and ad perks like optimized and targeted campaigns.

Set up your Profile and Page.

Once you have signed up for each platform, you will need to set up a profile. For the personal profile that manages your business, I’d recommend adding a professional profile pciture and cover photo, completing your bio, and choosing a username or short url if available. Remember to consider who will see this, who you intend on communicating with, and how you want to represent yourself and your business.

For your pages, make sure you complete all of the details including your NAP (name, addresses, phone numbers), about statement, business website urls, and selecting the right categories for your business. Consistency is key here so make a document that has the details you can copy and paste easily.

Build Relationships.

You should also make sure to engage with customers as often as possible. You can do this by responding to comments, liking posts, sharing content, and commenting on other people’s posts. Joining other groups as your business or creating a group for your business is a great way to engage with or build new communities.

The best thing about social media marketing is that it allows you to connect with people who share similar interests. You can create a community around your product or service, which helps you build trust and credibility with potential customers. In addition, social media marketing provides you with a platform to interact directly with your audience. By interacting with them, you show that you care about what they think and that you want to help them solve problems.

Organic and paid customer engagements can be used to reach your customers and their look-a-likes with future ad campaigns. Improving their experience and your ad performance with more relevant ads.

Engage with Customers.

If you want to build an engaged community, you need to respond to customer questions and concerns directly. This will help them feel valued and appreciated, and it will encourage them to share their experiences with others as well. Getting positive reviews or recommendations are invaluable.

Create engaging content and optimize your posts for maximum engagement by using concise captions, eye catching visuals, the right emojis, and relevant hashtags. Be sure to measure the results of your efforts too. Most reporting tools give great feedback on this.

Responding to all of your customer reviews and testimonials is ideal as well. If the review of your product or service is less than favoirable, direct the conversation offline. Don’t hash it out on your reviews page. 🤨

Promote Products & Services.

You should also promote products and services related to your business. For example, if you sell shoes, you might post pictures of new styles and offer discounts on your website. Or, in the automotive business we post the manufacturer special offers a few times throughout the month for each model that is included.

The best thing about social media marketing is that it allows you to target specific groups of people who share similar interests and demographics. For example, if you sell women’s boutique clothing, you can target women, over 35, with an income level, shopping interest, and in-market shopping behavior that allows my clients to attain a click through rate on Facebook and Instagram 4-5x the industry benchmark. At the same time, they attract real paying customers who want and appreciate their products.

Additionally, most social media channels allow you to sync your product data with live updates and listings like Facebook Marketplace. This allows you to sell directly from the social media channel your customers engage with you on, if you wish.

Drop us a line if you have any questions about which social media channels are best for you and your business, if you need marketing guidance, or just general questions about the universe. We create and manage digital marketing campaigns for everything that clicks. 

-Nick

Ready to step up your marketing game? We’ve compiled a list of six tips on how to make your digital marketing more effective.

Digital marketing typically includes any form of advertising that uses the internet, social media, mobile devices, and other online platforms to reach consumers. It also includes email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, over-the-top or (OTT) and a few others.

Here’s a few tips to help you make the most of your digital marketing.

1. Focus on Quality over Quantity 💎

While there’s no doubt that quantity matters when it comes to digital marketing, quality should always come first. If you’re not producing high-quality content, then you won’t see much success with any form of digital marketing.

The best thing about digital marketing is that it allows businesses to target specific audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and location. For example, if you own a restaurant, you might want to advertise on Facebook to reach people who live near your business. If you sell hiking products, you could market to people interested in hiking adn the outdoors. And if you sell financial services, you could target people looking for help with taxes or needing investment advice.

2. Create an Editorial Calendar 📆

A good editorial or social media calendar will help you plan out what type of content you’ll produce each week. It also helps you keep track of deadlines and ensure that you stay on schedule. You can use Google Sheets or Excel to create one. Most major social media management tools like Hootsuite, Radaar, Buffer, Social Pilot and others have them built right in.

3. Be Consistent with Your Branding 💪

If you’re looking to build an online brand, consistency is key. This means creating a consistent tone across all your social media channels, as well as your website.

The most important thing to remember when selling your product or service with digital marketing is consistency. If you want to be successful, then you must be consistent with the image and messages you promote your business with. Brand recall and recognition are invaluable.

4. Measure Everything 📏

You need to measure everything. Let me say that again, you need to measure all the things! Whether it’s your conversion rate, bounce rate, or click through rates you cannot measure your success without proper tracking and data collection.

It’s important to track these metrics in order to see what works and what doesn’t. Split testing and proper targeting make measuring your marketing success much easier as well.

5. Don’t Forget About Social Media 👍

If you’re not using social media as part of your digital marketing strategy, then you’re leaving money on the table. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest are an essential component of any successful online marketing campaign.

The most important thing to remember about digital marketing is that it’s constantly changing. As technology advances, marketers must adapt to stay relevant. For example, SEO has changed from being a primary focus to becoming a supporting strategy ot social media channels. In addition, many companies now rely heavily on social media marketing because it allows them to connect directly and engage with customers.

6. Hire a Professional 👷‍♂️

Last, but definitely not least, hire a professional people! Give us a call, text, email, chat, Facebook message or send a telegram and we’ll get to work helping you take your business to the next level with professional digital marketing. We support all digital marketing channels from websites to social media to email marketing campaigns.

-Nick

What Is An Empty Sales Pipeline?

At some point, every business has experienced an empty or nearly empty sales pipeline. As a result, customers can no longer afford your services, or even worse, they no longer need it. Sadly, the danger of an empty sales pipeline is far too familiar. Therefore, you need to act fast to keep yourself in game and stay in business. In addition to the financial stress of an empty sales pipeline, now you have a new worry. Lastly, if you are not making sales, nobody will not benefit from what it is that you have to offer.

Why Isn’t My Sales Pipeline Full?

Be honest and ask yourself these questions: Is my product or service in high demand? Is the competition getting to my clients or customers first? Are buyers avoiding my business due to negative reviews? Have I been maximizing all of my efforts to satisfy my clients or customers and generate new leads? If your answers were not: Yes, No, No, Yes, then you might be experiencing an empty sales pipeline. Arguably, the hardest part of keeping your sales pipeline full should be selling. Once you sell to a client or customer, you need to replace that client or customer in order to keep your sales pipeline running smoothly. Think of your sales pipeline just like any other regular pipe. A pipe needs to connect to a source of liquid or else it will run dry. The liquid source of your sales pipeline are the clients and customers which can be acquired through lead generation.

How Do I Build My Sales Pipeline?

First things first, you need to identify your target audience. You could try to sell meat to vegetarian, but wouldn’t it be easier to sell to the owner of a deli? If you put your product in front of the wrong audience, you’re not going to generate leads. Now I’m sure you’re wondering: How do I put my product or service in front of the right audience? You could do the shotgun blast approach and cold call, try email marketing, or going door-to-door. None of those tactics are really the most efficient use of your time. Think of yourself as a consumer who is shopping around. Where would you go first if you were trying to learn about a product or service? If you answered ‘the internet,’ you answered similarly to the majority of consumers. Building a strong online presence is the most efficient way to generate leads. The most efficient way to build a strong online presence is by ranking high on the first page of Google.

How Do I Get My Website To Show Up At The Top Of The Search?

Showing up at the top of the first page of Google takes a lot of time and effort. For this to happen, you need to shift your focus in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) . Search Engine Optimization is the process of building a strong website with relevant content that ranks on the first page of Google, resulting in free organic quality traffic. There are many blogs, videos, and online courses available to help teach you SEO, but unless that is a hobby or your line of work, it would make much more sense to hire an SEO agency to rank your website in Google for you. If you have any questions of concerns on how you can get your website to rank on the first page of Google, call us today and speak with an SEO expert.

7 Keys to a Successful SEO Strategy that gets Traffic

Optimization is defined as the process or method of making something as fully perfect, functional or effective as possible by Merriam Webster. There is no such thing as a ‘finished’ website, but the process of optimization in website design is to do everything you can now to be found but to also set your website up for future traffic. Successful SEO strategy comes in many parts, but follow these surefire ways to build and grow your website with SEO in mind and you’ll start winning those search engine results positions. Read on SEO warrior!

What is SEO Strategy & Conversion Optimization?

The goal of search engine optimization or SEO strategy and conversion optimization strategy is to convert your website visitors into paying customers. Each part of your SEO strategy is focused on a different audience or way to find your website and content. let’s dig in a bit.

SEO Strategy

From the search engine results page or SERP, the goal in SEO is to get a click through to your website. This is accomplished by optimizing your on-page SEO data like keywords and phrases, page titles, and meta descriptions. These titles and descriptions should accurately describe the content on your website or a specific page. No trickery! Your visitors and Google will penalize you for it. Keep reading to learn how to do it right.

Conversion Optimization

Conversion optimization is focused on getting that website visitor to take your desired action. This can be placing a call, sending you an email, completing a form, or purchasing a product from your website. As mentioned above, if your website page content matches the meta description and title you’re in with the visitor already. Conversion optimization would call for the right calls to action and the right verbiage to help your visitor further down the sales funnel toward being a customer.

Moz.com’s ‘The Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Search Engine Optimization’ their ‘Mozlow’s hierarchy of SEO needs’ gives us seven key factors to focus on when implementing successful SEO in good website design. I’ll follow their lead and get a bit more descriptive down below.

What are the 7 Key Factors of SEO Strategy in Good Website Design?

1. Crawl Accessibility: Can search engines reach and index your website content?

2. Compelling Website Content: Is your content visually appealing and does it drive action?

3. Keyword Optimization: Are you saying the right things to attract searchers and search engines?

4. Great UX and UI: Do you offer a great user experience including fast load speed, ease of use, and a compelling website interface on any device?

5. Share-worthy Website Content: Do you try to earns links, citations, and engagement from your visitors and peers?

6. On-Page SEO: Is your technical SEO like the page title, URL, & meta description to in line with your SEO strategy?

7. Featured Snippet & Schema Markup: Are you formatting your SEO content to be featured at point zero on SERPS?

1.Crawl Accessibility

Search engines are the most important audience you need to consider when creating your SEO strategy and content. Before you ever get to search, Google and fellow search engines crawl your website to index and organize the information you present. This is also referred to as Indexing. Google offers a great explanation of How Google Search Works that is easy to follow.

If your website has already been indexed, any new content you create will be added eventually. But a successful SEO strategy, or successful anything really, doesn’t involve much sitting around and waiting. You can be proactive in creating that SEO strategy success by doing a few free and easy things. 

• Submit your XML sitemaps to Google via Search Console. Sitemaps are literal text maps of the organized content on your website. It’s a definite part of successful SEO strategy, but not always the quickest.
• URL Inspection Tool. The URL Inspection Tool is part of the Search Console toolbox. Simply type or paste the URL you want Google to index and hit enter. You’ll see the following message verifying your page is ready for indexing. Click the Request Indexing button to have Google manually add your site to its index. You’ll see a message indicating your page was submitted.
• Submit URL Tool. This doesn’t actually exist anymore. No more lazy routes to a successful SEO strategy. You need to put in the time if you want your visitors to find you.
• Use Google My Business. Post your content on your Google My Business profile. Add all the proper images, title, description, and link the button back to your SEO ready webpage. 
• Host your website on Google. Can’t hurt to give Google 100% access to all of your website and content if you want them to serve it, can it? Well, I wouldn’t go about saying that, but less barriers to your website and content mean quicker and more frequent touches from Googles crawlers. I don’t currently host anythign on Google Sites by the way, a full web host offers a plethora of additional options.

2.Compelling Website Content

I’ve built some amazing websites with great technical SEO. But there were a few that lacked the substance or content to qualify as a great or successful website. Without the right information in the right place, your website visitors are going to bounce out and do it quickly.

FEATURED: Check out our Utmost Guide to a Successful Website for an indepth review of a what a good website takes. Here’s a quick link to the importance of visual appeal in your website design.

Provide your website visitors with compelling and visuallly appealing content. This will go to complement your search engine optimized text content. Make sure to include alt tags, descriptions, and captions when applicable. Videos are the best selling content on the internet. Include a video recap of your webpage or how-to for a product. Answer your visitors questions and give them more engagement options.

3.Keyword and Phrase Optimization

Keywords have been pronounced ‘dead’ for some time, but that’s not entirely true. Singular keywords are old news, LSI or latent semantic indexed keywords are the new new. LSI keywords are other words and, more importantly, phrases that are related to your content of choice.

Think about finding a restaurant at midnight in a strange town. You’re searching for “restaurants near me” or “restaurants open now”, not so much “Mexican food”. If you’re a Mexican food restaurant, you definitely want to include that phrase, but make sure to cater to folks whos priorities in searching for you may differ.

LSIGraph.com LSI Keyword and Phrase Tool

Head over to LSIGraph’s website and try their keyword research tools. Great info and worth looking into the paid version.

4.Great User Experience

You need to have your readers at the forefront of consideration when presenting your optimized website. Providing your users with a great experience on your website includes several factors that also make Google and fellow search engines happy.

SEO Performance Report from GTMetrix.com

A great user experience consists of fast load times, ease of use, consistent function and the compelling content I mentioned already. If your website doesn’t load in a timely manner and present the proper information, your visitor will leave and not come back. This first impression will also be how your potential customer views your business. Read our Guide to a Successful Website to read more about the importance of visual appeal.

Visit GTMetrix to see how you rate for SEO and user experience. Their free tool provides a ton of insight on much of your SEO strategy as it pertains to User Experience.

5.Make it Share-worthy

You can spend ages crafting the perfect website design and SEO strategy. You also need to be proactive in starting the conversation about your website and that most valuable content. Making your website content shareable will earn you backlinks, citations, and engagement. 

Getting your social media audience to talk about and engage with your content is a great way to amplify your message or brand. Backlinks, social conversations, and sharing all create the ever elusive trust signals that come with genuine discussion and engagement. Take advantage of your favorite preferred social media outlets by inviting your followers to engage.

FEATURED: A free lesson from HubSpot – Link Building for SEO: Scaling Your BackLink Strategy is a great lesson to take in on getting serious with your backlink strategy. Definitely worth the signup, don’t miss the other free stuff!

Be sure to take the time to engage with your followers and industry peers for deeper conversations and customer service opportunities. Facebook offers free online training to learn their entire suite of apps and websites geared towards businesses.

6.On Page SEO & Meta

The on-page SEO data is a major part of your SEO strategy. This information includes your metadata like the page title, meta description, and the page URL or slug. Successful SEO strategy takes every aspect of your website and page content. A great page title should be around 55 characters in length and an effective meta description will have about 160 characters. As an example, if your focus is “emergency vet services”, your page title, meta description, and page URL should look something like the following:

URL: https://123notarealvet.com/emergency-vet-services
Page Title: Emergency Vet Services at 123 Not a Real Vet in YourTown (56 characters)
Meta Description: Get emergency vet services now in YourTown, AZ now! We are a 24/7 full-service animal hospital. Come directly to our hospital for immediate care for your pet. (158 characters)

I used the word ‘vet’ in this example because in the moments I was in need of emergency pet care, there was no way I was trying to spell ‘veterinarian’. Know your audience and plan your SEO strategy accordingly with the right keyword research.

7.Featured Snippets and Schema Markup

Schema Markup and Featured Snippets are advanced ways for you to help the search engines understand your content. These options focus on the format of the data more than anything.

Schema

With the right Schema markup, you can identify anything from products to events. According to Moz.com Schema is most often used to provide more details on the following:

• Creative Work
• Events
• Organizations
• Persons
• Places
• Products
• Check out the full Schema hierarchy here.

Featured Snippets

Example of a Featured Snippet in Google SERPs

Featured snippets are a great way to show first on search results pages as well as establishing authority on a specific subject matter. They answer the direct questions of the searcher, not just display relevant information. A featured snippet is the list of key features a successful SEO strategy includes for example or the answer to your question about the latest features of your new phone update.

Over at Neilpatel.com they refer to the featured snippet as ‘position zero’ as it lives above the first ad or organic results. These snippets usually take up a lot of space too. Here’s an example of what a featured snippet looks like when you search for ‘what is an Irish jig dance?‘

Closing

Creating a successful SEO strategy comes with a need for real research and planning in order to be effective and accomplish your goals. An SEO strategy that takes into account the many technical aspects of website design and SEO will see immediate success and a lift in search results page rantings. But developing an SEO strategy that includes compelling and well-organized content will win you consistent and profitable traffic that converts to leads. Combine a good technical SEO standing with the right content and you’ll be found every time and be first in line to answer your customers’ questions.

At Sublime Dzine we bring the technical aspect of SEO strategy, the creatives brain for compelling content creation, and website designs that grow businesses. Contact us today to get your free review of your SEO and website to get started on attracting new and greater traffic. And if you have something to add or a question, please please please comment below.