Facebook Ads

How do you buy Facebook Ads?

There are four ways to purchase Facebook ads. Facebook’s native solutions, Ads Create and Power Editor, are the most common. The Ads API is also useful if you’re an agency or big brand (as an FB Ad Buying Tool from a third-party vendor).

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Questions Community Managers Should Be Asking: Which of my posts need money behind them? Which are still performing well and converting organically?

Why do it?

  • Huge user base: Facebook has over 1 billion users. That’s almost 20% of the earth’s population.
  • Advanced targeting options let you reach the people who matter:

1. Partner Categories let you target based on a user’s lifestyle and purchasing history, even those that aren’t your existing customers (yet).

2. Custom Audiences let you target existing leads from your CRM database (i.e. your email list, phone number list, Facebook UID list, and Facebook App UID list).

3. Lookalike Audiences let you take it a step further, creating an audience of users similar to the users within your Custom Audience or using your website visitors, app users, and existing Facebook fans.

  • It’s cost-effective: Compared to traditional advertising (like TV and magazine), Facebook Ads are extremely cost effective. There is a minimum spend of just $1 per day and Facebook had the lowest cost per 1,000 impressions in advertising history – just $.25 per 1,000 impressions. That’s only 1% of the CPM cost for TV.
  • It compliments Facebook’s algorithm. Using paid media lets you extend time decayso more people have the opportunity to interact with your content. In addition, high-quality and well-targeted content is more likely to drive an action, thus boosting a user’s affinity with your fan page and making them more likely to see your content in the future.
  • You gotta. As organic reach decreases, this is a necessary move for maintaining/growing Facebook presence–and Community Managers are on the front line of knowing what audiences respond to positively and are repelled by.

Read more http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/04/08/understanding-facebooks-new-ad-structure-how-a-community-manager-can-impact-ad-spend/

What is Internet Marketing?

 

Internet marketing, also known as digital marketing, web marketing, online marketing, or e-marketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.

Internet marketing is sometimes considered to be broad in scope[citation needed] because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media.[citation needed] Management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems are also often grouped together under internet marketing.

Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales. Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along many different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, email marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies.

Internet marketing is associated with several business models:

  • E-commerce: In this model, goods are sold directly to consumers (B2C), businesses (B2B), or from consumer to consumer.
  • Lead-based Websites: A strategy whereby an organization generates value by acquiring sales leads from its website.
  • Affiliate Marketing: The process in which a product or service developed by one entity (e-commerce business, single person, or a combination) is sold by other active sellers for a share of profits. The entity of the product may provide some marketing material (sales letter, affiliate link, tracking facility); however, the vast majority of affiliate marketing relationships come from e-commerce businesses that offer affiliate programs.
  • Local Internet Marketing: Strategy through which a small company utilizes the Internet to find and nurture relationships that are to be used for real-world advantage. Local Internet marketing uses tools such as social media marketing, local directory listing, and targeted online sales promotions.
  • White hat Marketing: This form of Internet marketing follows all of the acceptable practices for the search engines.
  • Gray hat Marketing: This is when the practices are not specifically deceptive or abusive but lie in an area not specifically defined blackhat but still not entirely white hat.
  • Black at Marketing: This is a form of Internet marketing that employs deceptive, abusive, or less than truthful methods

Read more: http://www.googleplacesoptimization.org/search-engine-optimization-education/what-is-internet-marketing/

 

4 Ways to Rock Your Business Proposal Designs to Grow Sales

Selling is all about design.

The idea of “design” is a popular point of conversation as of late. But selling has really always been about design. If you visit a supermarket and you pay attention to the aisle displays, you’ll notice that the best,  most effective ones are those that showcase some design creativity. There may be something woefully boring about yellow-labelled cans of creamed corn, but there’s something eye-catching about them stacked in the form of an over-sized pyramid. That’s design, in a nutshell. It’s also selling.

On the Web, everything is a design. From webpages to business proposals, closing a sale online is an exercise in balancing color, form, and function, just as it is in the supermarket. But selling on the Web adds an additional dimension to the design prospect: information. So, in order for a design to be able to sell on the Web, it has to not only be aesthetically pleasing, but also informative.

1. Minimalist design is better than sensory overload

Having said all that about  thinking bigger than “black and white,” it doesn’t mean that your business proposal designs should be too busy. Another idea we can borrow from the world of web design, when creating proposals, is the notion of minimalism. Minimalist designs are everywhere. The key concepts in minimalist designs are:

  • Less is more
  • Leave out what you don’t need
  • If it’s there, it has to be good
  • Stick to a limited palette of colors
  • Above all else, keep it simple stupid

2. Narrow the field

The organization of information presented in your business proposals can affect your sales, too. As can the number of offers you present within a single proposal.

If you have no choice but to present several price packages in your business proposals, make sure you lay out the prices in a table that is very clear and easy-to-read. And definitely try to avoid creating total confusion with hard-to-understand pricing. The notion of narrowing the field also extends to your overall offer, too. 

3. Show some results

No one likes to buy anything sight unseen. That means your business proposals will benefit from including a picture of your goods/services in action, or the results of using them. If you create apps, some screenshots of your apps in action are in order and perhaps a video demo walk-through. If you provide lead generation services, as another example, you might show some incoming lead analysis screen captures. You can always support such images with testimonials and customer success stories.

4. A remedial lesson in how attention leads to action

Anyone who’s ever worked in sales in a small-box retail establishment, like Radio Shack, can tell you about a basic, newbie-level sales concept that some seasoned salespersons tend to forget. It’s called “AIDA,” which stands for:

  • Attention
  • Interest
  • Desire
  • Action

When designing your business proposals, AIDA can assist you in choosing the order in which you present the content of your proposals. You’ll find plenty of info on the sales funnel, the sales process, and sales strategy, but they’re all just different names for the same old thing, and AIDA underpins it all. The introductory page of your proposal is meant to earn the prospect’s Attention. The next section should hold their attention and begin to cultivate it into Interest. The next section transforms interest into Desire, which is used to call the customer to Action – the part where they bite on the sale, or in this case, accept your proposal.

Read more:  http://blog.quoteroller.com/2013/11/21/how-to-design-business-proposals/

5 EASY TACTICS FOR SUCCESSFUL ONLINE MARKETING

1. USE RICH MEDIA TO ATTRACT CLICKS AS WELL AS READERS.

Today’s marketers aren’t just sharing brief quips and content with witty titles. They’re also sharing content like press releases, interview transcriptions, and even recorded sound and video clips.

If you run a blog that is adjacent to your website, consider recording 3 to 5 minute videos instead of spending an hour or more writing a blog post.

You’d be surprised at how readily thoughts may come to your mouth instead of the delayed amount of time it takes to mentally transcribe thoughts into written words.

2. CREATE ONLINE MARKETING DIGEST.

Make it easy for your readers to see, at a glance, what you’ve been up to on your website and/or blog.

Consider daily or even weekly digest letters that provide a quick summary (no more than 1 to 2 sentences) of that day’s or week’s updates. Format digests in bullet form, with links in bold and bold or italicized text to emphasize important pieces of info.

3. BE ACTIVE ON FACEBOOK.

According to recent surveys, literally everyone as well as their mothers are on Facebook – which means you should be, too!

Use your Facebook Page as more than a place to throw links to new products and the occasional coupon or sale. Participate on Facebook daily by creating your own threads, responding to other ones, and simply sharing relevant or amusing content that will capture the attention of your fans – and bring them back to you.

4. COMPETE WITH THE BIG BOYS.

While it’s true that in some cases you simply won’t be able to beat the low-low-low prices on eBay and Amazon, it’s also true that you have plenty to offer your customers.

If you can’t beat them at the bottom dollar price, beat them in other ways: offer free and/or fast shipping, coupons for subsequent orders, and always offer personalized shopping services and support that is just a click or call away.

5. FOCUS ON BRAND AWARENESS.

Ideally you want to be the go-to brand for the products you sell. This means you need to brand yourself.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t emphasize the hot sellers in your store – by all means, do so! But you should make it clear that you are the go-to brand for certain products, as well as an excellent shopping experience.

http://socialvani.com/2014/04/successful-online-marketing/

 

 

 

 

 

 

SMS Mobile Marketing

 

SMS Marketing

How Does Mobile Marketing Work?

Mobile marketing / coupon campaigns typically begin with the brands creating a database of opt-in users. For example, a fast food restaurant might hang signage near the waiting lines.  Customers can then send a text message to a short code (e.g., text SUBWAY to 12345) and immediately receive a text message that provides some value, such as a discount coupon, or entry into a sweepstakes of sorts.
Once a brand has built up its database of opt ins, they can then begin to send out their promotions, typically once or twice per week.  The frequency of messaging depends on the nature of the brand, and the expiration date of the coupons.
A consumer may opt-out of any mobile-marketing campaign simply by replying “STOP” to the text message received. According to Anthony Wayne of the Text Message Blog, the opt-out rate for mobile coupons is only 3%.
Also attractive to consumers is the ease of use in joining an SMS program.  There’s no form to fill out, no website to visit.  All that’s needed is to use that little device that everyone has, their cell phone, and send a quick text message.
Once someone opts into your program, their cell phone becomes your billboard, as your brand and promotions are steadily displayed on their phone.  Your business has just bought the most expensive advertising space; a direct touch-point to your market, enticing new and repeat customers with your promotions.
SMS is not for all businesses, but when it does apply, the response rates dwarf those of traditional advertising. No matter what size business you are, you can become a mobile marketer within hours and start using a shared short code. So what do you have to lose? Try it out and see what works

Why start an SMS program? 

Response rates for Text (SMS) Marketing have been proven to consistently outperform all other marketing media, some rates as high as 70%.

People who subscribe to your SMS Marketing program do so because they like your product. These subscribers are asking you to provide them with your promotions.  They want you to give them reasons for buying your product.

Offers that are sent to your SMS Marketing program subscribers are delivered in a timely fashion.  No more receiving email coupons that have expired.

SMS Marketing Benefits:

SMS Speed: Text messages are received virtually immediately, making it the ideal solution for distributing information, whether that information is coupons for products, time-sensitive information, or anything else than can benefit a business through timely delivery.
SMS Readability: As 94% of all text messages are read, your marketing message will be seen by virtually all of the subscribers in your SMS program.
SMS Qualified Recipients: Since your subscribers have opted-in to receiving your offers and promotional messages, you know they have an active interest in your business, and your products.
SMS Flexibility: With text messages sent and received within minutes of starting your campaign, you can use mobile marketing for ad-hoc purposes, such as driving traffic to your store on slow nights (“Make a purchase within x hours, and receive a xx % discount!”), or clearing out overstock items before end of month. This is the new “Blue Light Special”!
SMS Range of Use:Mobile marketing can be used for a wide range of purposes: announcing new product, one-day specials, new store openings, special events…etc. Subscribers can be treated as an exclusive group for offers and information that only they have access to, increasing loyalty, purchases, and speed of communications.

What Can Mobile Marketing Be Used For

Mobile marketing can be used for almost all retail operations, with the primary objective being increasing customer traffic, patronage and REVENUE.  SMS messaging is an unprecedented form of communication. No other channel in the history of marketing has the immediacy of SMS.

National brands such as Subway have embraced the use of mobile coupons. What they like best about their mobile programs is the fact that they can reach their audience when they’re most likely to purchase their product.

http://www.bulkemailpower.com/smspower

The Biggest Mistake In Mobile Marketing

You’re the marketing expert at your company and you’ve finally convinced your team that connecting with customers on the mobile devices is an important initiative this year. You know your new mobile strategy needs to play nice with your current programs but when you look at your current marketing – it’s, well…all over the place. Tactic after tactic that was implemented to address a need. You’re probably even paying for some really cool products/services and not really using them.

Don’t Jump To Execution

You’re smart enough to know that you need a mobile specialist but that’s not really in budget is it? So you start googling for examples of successful mobile campaigns and you come across the likes of Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Domino’s, Walgreens etc. You notice a few of them have an app and you say to yourself “we need an app!”

You show your team what these other brands are doing and everyone gets on the app train. You find a developer or possibly an online service that can build your app and you’re off to the races. But wait right there…you just made the biggest mistake in mobile.

You just skipped all of the important steps in developing a mobile strategy.

You jumped right to execution.

But Starbucks has an app” you’re saying to yourself. Actually Starbucks has multiple apps for different objectives. When most business look to the successful mobile marketers they see the end result. They don’t think like the brand or even their agency as to why they chose the direction they did. You see their results and you go to execution, trying to satisfy a need for something like a mobile website or an app before you ever defined an objective.

Let’s make sure you don’t make the biggest mistake in mobile marketing and go through the appropriate steps.

Step 1: Determine One Objective

Yup, just one. This is the business goal that your mobile marketing can achieve. If you don’t have enough money to achieve that goal, tough luck. Pick another. Goals that you can’t afford are not realistic goals.

Now you have to make sure that goal is super specific so that you can measure your marketing against it to gauge success. Let’s say you’re a restaurant  – your specific goal could be to increase sales by 15% in 4-6 months by offering exclusive dining experiences for loyal customers.

Step 2: Define Your Target Audience

This is not easy for most businesses. They try to please everyone and end up pleasing nobody. In this step you’re trying to picture your dream customer. Why are they your dream customer? Write it down…

What is their name? What do they do for a living? Are they married? Kids? Exactly how old are they? Break down each of your new customer persona’s and list out the best place to reach them, the ideal time and appropriate form of communication to present your offering.

Step 3: Define Your Own Identity

This is usually the most difficult step. You start looking at your competition and listing out what makes you different or how you do something differently. It’s not about that, sorry. It’s about your story. WHY do you do things the way you do? Now more than ever consumers connect with businesses that feel human. Say you have better customer service. Why do you have better service? Why do you as a company care so much about customer service?

When your customers understands and believes why you do something better than the next guy, you win. If they don’t believe you or know why you do things the way you do. Why should they care or believe you?

Step 4: Develop Your Plan Of Attack

Here we go. This is part is fun and will have the biggest impact. You’ll either end up on Mobile Marketer or Mobile Marketing Fail Blog. You’ve defined who your customer is and you know exactly how you want them to think about you. Now is when you get to explore the various options available to most effectively connect your target audience to believe your identity and mission.

This is where it may be easy to look back at the pro’s and try to emulate them but be careful as that can be lethal. Heck, maybe after steps 1-3, you realize that an app isthe best path. If you come closer to the end of the road and the right app developer is too expensive. You’ll have to table that opportunity and find something that is more reasonable. Or you can find a more affordable app developing solution. In a later post we’ll talk about how to pick the right developer.

Step 5: Execution

NOW that you’ve taken all the right steps you can go to the execution part. Before reading this post you might have actually started in Step 5 but now you’re ready to set yourself up for success and get that fatty raise. When it comes time to create and execute the plan you should run your idea back through the last 4 steps. Does your execution plan align with your target audience, your identity and fall within the plan?

You’ll be shocked at how much easier it is to sell in new initiatives to your team with a little bit of leg work up front. Measuring your success will also be a heck of a lot easier.

http://mobilemixed.com/the-biggest-mistake-in-mobile-marketing/

Email Open Rates

Email open rates are a statistic that gives you an idea of how many people opened the email you sent to your distribution list. Keeping track of the trending of this statistic is important as it allows you to determine what motivates people to open and read your email.

How Are Open Rates Determined?

Most email list management software or vendors will embed a small 1×1 pixel image in the email which is also known a tracking pixel. When that image is shown in the persons email client it tells the email list management software that person X, just opened the email. Just from one little pixel most email list programs can tell which person opened the email and how many times they viewed the email.

In more recent years a lot of email providers automatically disable images from loading which has dramatically lowered the open rates. It’s no longer viewed as an accurate measure of successful opens.

Some list management software also incorporates link clicking into the open rate to give a better indication of your true open rate. If an encoded link is clicked it will count towards the open rate. Obviously if they clicked a link they opened the email.

How Do You Increase Open Rates?

There are many different ways to increase your open rate.

  • Ask the person you are emailing to add you to their safe senders list.
  • Have a catchy subject line that entices people to open the email.
  • Embed some graphics. Embedded graphics are automatically shown in most email clients since they are considered less risk.
  • Run your emails through a spam filter and check the spam score. Read “Howto Avoid Spam Filters “
  • Try to get on the different white lists that are available. Do a White List Search to see which ones you are already on.
  • Improve your sender reputation. Read “How to Avoid Losing Reputation.”

Below Are Some Industry Average Email Open Rates

Email Open Rates By Industry

http://www.unlocktheinbox.com/resources/openrates/

Why Best Email Marketing Services Can Help In Growing Your Business?

Online business owners speculate what they can do to increase their sales in order to generate more revenues for their business. If this is what you are looking for, then you may get advantage from a marketing technique known as e-mail marketing. You want to obtain actual results from your email marketing endeavor, so bound yourself to deliver emails only to customers who gave you permission to stay in touch with them. Those who get unwanted e-mails from you are probable to obstruct them anyway. Your email marketing company, which is generally your own e-mail host, can remove you from their servers if they get repeated complaints about your spam.

email-marketing-service-provider

The main reason to create your email marketing plan is to induce your customers to purchase your product or services. Each email should be a method to get customers to make a purchase. You can do this by creating an email that emphasizes details about a new product, markets an older product or gives a unique deal.By the help of a well-organized email campaign, it is practically possible to give positive results for the business, which adds value to its whole advertising campaign. The major thing is that when you start ensuring to perform the entire process in the best feasible manner. It does not matter what type of business you have because through using email marketing you can augment your intended client-base in an economical manner.

Email marketing promotions will permit your business to move on to the subsequent level, no issue what the current size at this point of time your business has. The major idea is to make a list of trustworthy customers along with intended prospects for the upcoming campaign. When you begin an e-mail marketing campaign ensure that emails have well-planned content and use the best email marketing services as well. Thus, information to customers are presented in the best way.

Here are 3 imperative reasons why best email marketing services is a valid alternative for growing your business;

1. If somebody signs up to your email list, they are obviously interested in what you are providing. For that particular reason, when you create your database you can be definite that you have direct contact to a list of people who are keen to hear what you have to put forward and better so far, are all set to purchase whatever you are promoting. A simple e-mail could aggressively improve your sales with a click of the mouse.

2. Marketing through e-mail can charge you very less per month to set up an account with an email marketing company that permits you to deliver bulk emails to opt in customers. If you are a new business owner and do not know much about email marketing, then you can go for free email marketing services as well. By doing this, you can check the reliability of e-mail service provider.

3. Through email marketing you can save the future of your business. Chances are that you would like to increase your business down the line and present more products or services to your customers. By using an email list of present customers on hand, you can right away promote your new offerings to a concerned group of people. This saves you both time and money and counteracts the requirement to practically begin from scratch all the time you have something new to provide.

In summary, email marketing is an extraordinary method to make sure that your business increases over time and reduce the amount of time and money you need to spend to attain that growth.

http://bestemailsolutions.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/why-best-email-marketing-services-can-help-in-growing-your-business/

3 Reasons to Build a Startup Marketing Plan

 3 Reasons to Build a Startup Marketing Plan

There are a bunch of good reasons to create a marketing plan, work against it and maintain it.  Here are three:

  1. Documenting assumptions/expectations– There are a set of inputs to any marketing plan: known information about the segment/buyers, how the buyers see the value of your offering versus alternatives, and the steps in the buying process. There are assumptions around each of those inputs based on things that are very likely to change over time such as the competitive landscape, the current capabilities of the product, and buyer behavior. You, and the other members of the team may not be in agreement on those (or even conscious of them). Getting those documented will both reduce the risk of incorrect or mis-aligned assumptions and will allow the team to recognize and react to changes that impact the assumption.
  2. Keeping folks focused – Some people are naturally organized and very good at working through a plan kept only in their heads. The rest of us however, are easily distracted by the daily crises that form the regular pattern of how most startups operate.  Responding quickly to opportunities and threats is strength of smaller companies but some things in marketing take time to produce results and if you aren’t working against a schedule they won’t get done. Inbound and Content Marketing programs are often the first things to go out the window. It’s easy to skip a blog post, delay an article, not get around to responding to folks on Twitter, etc. when there are events to run and sales folks to respond to and a folks pounding the table asking why are there fewer leads this week than there were last week and FIXTHATRIGHTNOOOOWWWWW! This is the reason you see so many company blogs with only a handful of posts. Working against a schedule with regular checkpoints not only lets you assign tasks and hold people (including yourself) to deadlines, it also helps keep everyone focused on the longer-term (meaning this month rather than this minute) goals.
  3. Visibility into what you aren’t doing – One of the most important inputs to a marketing plan is documenting the customer buying process. Getting your arms around that helps you understand where prospects are getting stuck and what you can do to take the friction out of the funnel. It’s easy to be working on a set of tactics that are all focused on getting buyers from one particular point to another in the path when the sticky point in the process could be up or down stream and requires a different set of tactics to move folks along.

http://www.rocketwatcher.com/blog/2012/07/3-reasons-to-build-a-startup-marketing-plan.html

How Often Should You Update Your Marketing Plan?

When you are establishing a marketing plan, you can have a plan that is up-to-date or you can have a plan that is guaranteed to fail. That may sound a little harsh, but stop and think about how much things change in the span of a few months or even a few weeks. You should periodically go through your marketing plan and make sure that you tweak your strategy. This will help you be sure that your marketing strategy will survive the next stages of your business.

There is no magic rule for updating your strategy. Many entrepreneurs suggest updating your plan every month. However, you should keep a few things in mind before deciding how often you should have a new go at your plan:

  1. Your industry. This is a big deal, because some businesses are more subject to changes than others. If you are in a technology field where new changes are taking place on a regular basis, you may need to update your plan on a biweekly basis. On the other hand, if you are in an industry that has been fairly stagnant, you may not need to update your plans more than a couple of times a year.
  2. Fundamental changes to your company. You are likely to have a number of changes in your business that will require a new marketing plan. If you lose a lot of capital, you will have to create a leaner marketing budget and change your plan accordingly. The same goes if any of your key employees leave, as your marketing plan should be based around the strengths of your employees.
  3. Key trends in your customer base. If customers are changing their behaviors or losing interest in a particular type of promotional effort, it is essential that you adjust your marketing plan.
  4. Effectiveness. Has your plan been effective recently? There is no point going forward with a plan that isn’t going to provide you the benefit you are looking for. If you are noticing a lag in your sales, it is probably a good time to take a second look at your plan.

A marketing plan that outdated quickly loses its effectiveness. Take the time to routinely go through your plan and make sure that your strategy is kept current.

Many businesses make the mistake of over-planning up front and never looking at their plan again. Instead, you should learn to frame your plan as an ongoing development that needs to be revised regularly.

http://grasshopper.com/blog/how-often-should-you-update-your-marketing-plan/