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Small Business Email Marketing – How to Improve Your Marketing ROI

IPT Ltd recently released some survey results that proved very interesting reading. They asked the public what they considered to be the most effective marketing medium. There were no surprises to see that TV came first with 37%, but a surprising second was email, which came in at 32%! Which approach do you think will generate the best return for a small business? Yes, small business email marketing!

Obviously, you will need the contact details of your customers as well as any new prospects, for your small business email marketing plan to succeed.

There are two ways that you can get people visiting your business to give you their contact details. Get them to fill out a form on the premises for you to manually upload later or, (the best option), direct them to your website where they can fill in a opt in form.

To ensure that people actually want to give you their details, you’ll need to offer them some kind of incentive. Buy One Get One Free offers, competitions, and even valuable free information do a good job. Every person who fills in the opt in form becomes a member of your email “club”, people you’ll be able to contact time after time.

There is a well known business maxim that goes “people only do business with people they like” and if we add ‘know and trust’ then there you have the goal of online email marketing. Each email you send will build up trust and the likelihood that the email prospect will buy from you when the time is right.

Email marketing for small businesses is a really good business-building decision for all small businesses. As well as being a extremely cost effective, emails build trust, credibility and enable you to send messages to your customers or clients at a time when they are ready to purchase, whether that is the 3rd email you send, 14th or 154th!

A good small business email marketing approach to take is to describe a problem that your target market has, and suggest your product or service as a solution. As you show understanding of the problem, on a subconscious level your email recipient will know that you can solve it. Another way is to provide useful tips people can use, as this demonstrates knowledge and expertise. Also sending an email with a coupon that can be printed out and used as a discount is good business email marketing approach as well.

The same research completed by IPT also shows that most influential aspect of an email communication is discounts or money off at 27%, second comes general interest about product or service at 24% and joint third place at 20% is prize draw and brand familiarity. These statistics should help in your decisions as to what to include in your own small business email marketing campaign.

One example in the ‘real’ world small business email marketing success I can think of is a dog breeder who started a monthly newsletter with photos of the dogs they had available. This meant that if a person came by and didn’t want any of the dogs on that particular day, they could sign up for the email newsletter and get photos of new dogs sent to them each month, without having to visit the breeder’s home. Now these dogs were selling for about $1300 a pop, so this was a brilliant way to keep in touch with potential dog buyers.

You just need to look to the Fortune Global 500 corporations to see more examples of email marketing success. They recognize that staying in touch with clients and customers through email can actually cut your advertising costs and get you more sales. With small business email marketing you can easily get to the stage where an email blast is more successful than a £2,000 for a full page newspaper ad.

So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get you started then…

How to Improve a Newspaper Design in Four Easy Steps

Do you ever wonder why there are some newspapers that are really popular and have a wide readership? Then, try to take a look at their design. Remember, the first thing that people get to see in a newspaper is its layout. Nobody would bother reading the whole paper, especially if it doesn’t look interesting. So, if you want to make your publication look more appealing and increase your readership, try to do these four easy steps to improve your newspaper design.

Purchase a Publishing Design Program

Buying a software on publishing design can help a lot in creating the perfect layout for your paper. Try to look for programs that could create layouts for you, which includes typesetting and template features. It’s also a plus if it allows you to work with text and graphics.

Set Up a Basic Template

Templates not only make your task simpler and easier but can also help you come up with great layouts. You no longer have to spend so much time copying and pasting photos, text documents and other quotation excerpts. Try to, you could choose to refer to the designs of top newspapers for you to be able to take note of the preset typefaces for headlines, bylines etc. that they use.

Pick an Identifiable Typeface for Your Logo

Another thing to do to improve your newspaper design is to have an identifiable typeface for your logo. This lets your readers know the type of content your paper has. For instance, a more formal logo denotes a formal style of writing. Since the logo would be associated to your newspaper, carefully consider the typeface that you will use for it. Keep in mind that the simpler the logo, the better it would be.

Organize the Sections of Your Newspaper

For a better reading experience, try to come up with a way on how to organize your paper’s content. One good example is to separate it into sections and pages. Also, give each section a header so your readers will not be confused when looking for specific articles that they would want to read.

A newspaper’s design is an important factor in determining whether your paper will have a lot of subscribers or not. Try to buy a publishing design program to help you speed up your layout process. Create a basic template so that designing your newspaper won’t take too much time. Choose a great logo that would represent the vision and ideals of your company. And organize the sections of your paper for better readability. By following these four simple things, you’d definitely be able to improve your newspaper design.

Tips To Improve Your Website’s SEO Ranking

Search Engine Optimization, better known as SEO, is the practice of generating genuine traffic to a website through natural and organic search engine results. A search engine optimization company in India uses smart keywords to optimize a website’s content to attract higher rankings from search engines. In this age of digital media, SEO rankings play an important role in driving business for a brand.

With the rise of digital media, consumers have become more aware of the market. Almost every purchase cycle starts with a product query on the search engine. Brand names which appear among the top search results have a higher chance of capturing the customer’s attention. Studies have said that the average digital user does not check further than the first 5 search result links. This is why all brands make efforts to improve their SEO ranking so that they can appear among the first 5 links. For example, if a person is thinking to buy a microwave. The home appliance brands which appear among the top search results, the consumer is more likely to buy the microwave from one of these top brands.

Majority of business organizations are hiring a search engine optimization company in India to avail the full benefits of higher SEO rankings. Some of the helpful tips to increase a website’s SEO rankings are:

Produce relevant content

The content of a website plays a vital role in its SEO ranking. Factors like website traffic, dwell time, and bounce rate is an important SEO factor. To be ranked higher, a website must always create fresh, unique and relevant content. When the target audience finds a website content useful for their purpose, they are more likely to visit the site regularly. This can help to increase website traffic and build brand authority. By posting relevant content, websites can also make sure that readers spend more amount of time browsing through their content. By engaging the audience for a longer duration, the website’s dwell time will increase and bounce rate will go down. These factors help to improve the SEO ranking.

Page loading speed

If your website has a slow loading speed, it can affect your SEO rank in two ways:

1. Popular search engines like Google and Bing take note of a site’s page loading speed. If the loading speed is too slow, search engines will give your website a lower ranking.

2. Studies have stated that if a site takes more than 5 seconds to load, 40% of visitors will abandon the page. This will increase your website’s bounce rate, which will have a negative impact on the SEO.

Therefore, brands should ensure that their website pages load smoothly and quickly. High loading speed will fetch you a higher SEO rank.

Mobile optimization

The growing popularity of mobile phones means that an increasing number of internet searches are being carried out by mobile users. Thanks to smartphone and high-speed internet, consumers are free to access the search engine anytime they want. Recognizing this, search engines have started ranking websites based on their mobile compatibility. If a site is not optimized for mobile viewing, its ranking can be bumped down. To achieve higher SEO, brands should optimize their websites for mobile use.

Additionally, there are many other steps that can improve SEO rankings. This includes optimizing images, using outbound links, to use more than text, and much more. By simply following these basic steps, brands can find it easy to improve their SEO rank.

Visit our Website: http://www.ursdigitally.com/SEO-services

Or http://www.ursdigitally.com/digital-marketing

Speaking Well – Four Steps To Improve Your ESL EFL Students Speaking Ability

Mastery of English as a second or foreign language (ESL or EFL) comes down to how well a student speaks. He may write well, for example, get high marks on tests, or even have an accent nearly identical to a native speaker; but if he can’t express ideas, opinions, or instructions clearly in a conversation, few would call him proficient. Language is for communication after all, and that primarily means speaking.

As teachers, we continually assess the strengths and weaknesses of our classes. We then take this information and develop effective lessons, always working towards greater communicative ability which maintains a balance between fluency (getting the words out) and accuracy (using grammar and vocabulary correctly). What follows are four steps which serve as a model in planning lessons that give students ample practice time with the language. These steps also work towards free use of the language. Before the four steps, conversational ability should be defined, though.

Conversation involves the following: using the language, listening to the language, processing the information, and then responding to it. The purpose of the conversation affects the process, as does the place and the people involved. Compare English spoken to open a business meeting with English used to order at a restaurant. This language then differs from what may be needed during the business meeting, or to complain about the quality of the food.

From these examples, we can infer that a good speaker uses grammar and vocabulary effectively and accurately. We should also consider the context of the grammar and vocabulary, and how it can add nuance. For example, when, why, and to whom would a speaker describe business meetings in the following manner?:

Example A: “Even though our weekly meeting with those R&D people can be boring, I know how important it is. Let’s face it: it’s a necessary evil.”

Example B: “Ugh! Our weekly meeting with those R&D people drives me up the wall!”

Someone who speaks well would similarly understand when to use different grammar points. Native speakers “just know” the language, even if we can’t always give the whys and what fors of grammar or vocabulary. Lessons which involve speaking activities should always strive to build and reinforce these skills. In time, decisions in language usage like the above become more regular, or even subconscious.

Preparation: Allow the students to prepare for the tasks ahead with an effective warm-up. This gives everyone in the class ample opportunity to get their English wheels turning. Adequate time translates into fewer mistakes while you’re presenting and drilling the target language, so comprehension and use of the new language increases.

Present: Next present the topic for discussion, target grammar, or any vocabulary selected for the lesson. The warm up can serve as a springboard into the topic. For example, write on the board any synonyms of today’s key words used by the students, and then introduce the target vocab. Or if you focus on grammar, write several sentences from the warm up that will highlight the target structure. In both cases, information from the warm up gets recycled, thus providing a more efficient use of class time. The grammar or vocabulary becomes more memorable, too, because of the link to the initial conversations.

Practice: After the presentation, ESL / EFL students need to practice the new material. It’s unfair to expect them to make use of the new language without adequate practice. Drills work to achieve automatically, even at higher ability levels. Tightly controlled drills with new grammar points or vocabulary lay the foundation and provide examples. Activities should then move into freer and freer use of the language, which will allow each student to integrate the lesson material with pre-existing language.

Free Use: You should always work towards real use of the language. Whereas the first part of the lesson focuses on accurate production of the language, it’s done to then allow better practice of fluency (getting the words out). Activities at the end of the lesson allow students to select vocabulary and grammar structures, and to tie the day’s material with previously studied language. These activities also let upper-level learners apply strategies, use gestures and body language, and adjust their language for the intended audience or listener.

Improve Your Productivity When Focus Is Optimized Operating in Short-Bursts

If you have actually ever before dealt with situations where you may lose focus on a project or task, possibly a business associate or even a good friend has actually stated that you ought to attempt working in short-bursts as opposed to completing your job or project at one time. Even if you think this concept is strange, it isn’t necessarily a bad recommendation. There are three major advantages to working in short bursts.

1. You Will Be Less Tempted By Distractions

When you work in short segments, it lets you to be less tempted by interruptions. When you recognize that you can delay addressing interruptions or even ignore or at least just review the interruption in a few minutes, you lose the necessity to check it out right away and subsequently complete the task more efficiently.

2. You Can Plan Your Job Better

When you work in brief bursts, you can plan what you intend to do with each of your 15- or 20-minute work sessions. Since you can just fit so much work into one segment, planning these short work bursts makes it less complicated to decide what to do. It focuses you on concentrating on the essentials. It likewise assists because planning a 20-minute work session seems much less serious than planning a whole day, so you will not feel stressed out choosing what to spend your time working with during each short burst.

3. You’ll Be A lot more Concentrated, And Also Your Mind Will Be Clear

A Research study shows that the human mind can only concentrate at its maximum for around 20 mins each time or interval between a short break. This fact implies that you are combating or even overworking your mind when you try to concentrate for longer durations. When you take regular breaks from your job, like those detailed in the short burst work approach, your mind will obtain the break or rest it requires between tasks. Thus, every single time you start a brand-new burst of tasks, you will certainly be starting with a fresh mind that can stay focused for the whole project.

No matter exactly how you look at it, working in brief work sessions is really the way to go. It will allow you to be much less sidetracked, extra focused, a lot more concentrated as you function, and also you will not be as worn out. So when somebody recommends the brief burst method, listen to that person seriously and think about applying this strategy to your following project.

How to Improve Your Business Online Reputation

Today, managing and improving your online reputation has become essential. This is due to the advent of Google Search and the ability of anyone to look for you online and find out information about your company and your personal life.

Even if there is something out there that you don’t want people to dwell on, you can make it better. It takes a little bit of work but it can be done. In fact, everyone who wants to be known online should be doing these things.

Monitor the Buzz

People are talking about you. You can use Google Alerts and other online apps to monitor your business name, personal name, product names and more to know what is being said about you online.

Listen to Your Customers

So many business owners conduct surveys, read their online buzz, check out rating sites and so forth but never really listen. It’s important to show your audience by your actions that you’re listening.

Respond Quickly

When a customer has an issue or complains about you online, always respond quickly to the complaint. Even on social media, if you don’t answer a complaint they’ll see you as providing poor customer service regardless of whether you planned to provide customer service there or not.

Remain Positive

No matter what a customer, client, or review says, it’s imperative that you never allow negativity to take over. Stay positive and try to read between the vitriol. A good tip is to copy and paste their complaint or reviews into a word document, then delete anything that takes away from the complaint. Then only answer to the complaint.

Apologize

Even though business owners know that sometimes customers are wrong, in public they are right. You must apologize to them in public and offer to make it better. It’s the only way that you can regain the confidence and trust of the public. Better yet, ask the customer what you can do to make it better and you might be surprised at how little it takes.

Solicit Reviews

When you send information to your buyers in a follow up, always ask for positive reviews and give them the link of the place you want the review to be posted. This will help increase the positive and counteract any negative reviews that might exist.

Avoid Making Social Media Mistakes

Sounds easier than done, but all this means is you need to think twice about anything you put on social media, positive or negative. Even innocent jokes can get you into trouble if you don’t know your audience well enough.

Don’t Neglect Your Accounts

Once you have a social media account, do not allow it to remain dormant. Keep it updated on a regular basis – at least once a week personally, and if you enact some smart automation it will appear that you’re more active.

Personal Branding – Improve Your Google-Ability

Have you ever typed your name into Google? When you do, is it really you that comes up?

It’s quickly becoming a well-known fact that HR personnel and hiring managers at many companies will type job applicants’ names into Google before deciding who to interview. What comes up when your name is fed to Google could determine whether or not you get a job.

But even if you have your own company or are currently employed, branding yourself online is a free way of making yourself more marketable. For an entrepreneur it makes it easier for people looking for your good or service to find you. For someone currently employed it can help you establish yourself as an expert on what you do, which can help you get a raise or, perhaps even find another, better paying job.

You can improve your Google-ability in three easy steps. Here’s How:

1. Join social networking sites. If you’re already on them great; if not, join. And not just sites like Facebook and twitter, which, while they will come up on Google, are not really designed to present the user in a professional light. You should also join LinkedIn and post your resume. Sites like Meetup.com can show your interests, even smaller, niche social media sites like brazencareerist.com will help. Find sites with message boards where you can create a user profile and post content. The key is, when you do that, use your real name as your user name. That way, those posts or at least that site will come up when someone types your name into Google.

2. Comment on major blogs. Find a blog on the New York Times’ website, and comment on the issues that seem relevant to your career – media, if your interested in publishing; small business if you’re an entrepreneur; finance if you want to be a broker. Include your name in your posts (sign them, or, if you can create a “user name,” use your real name).

3. Google yourself – and when you do, go through the results. Click on the results you want to come up higher in the results list (that is, the results that are actually you). One way that Google determines search result rankings (the order that results are in) is by what links have been clicked on in the past when someone has searched that term. So, on a regular basis (monthly, or even weekly) type your name into Google and click on the results that are actually you and that you want to come up first.

Congratulations, you now know how to improve your Google-ability.

9 Website Design and Marketing Tips to Improve Your Local Business

The top 9 local search engine marketing tip series intends to help business owners better reach a local demographic using web sites and tools on the Internet. If you do not have a well coded website, get one. Then, use these local search engine optimization tips along with other research because this article alone will not cut it. This article is just a summary to follow, and you should seek out more information on how to increase your Google Page Rank and lower your Alexa Rank.

Tip #1: Create Quality Content With Plenty of Keywords.

Search engines and customers use keywords and phrases to find your website. Make sure you use plenty of the words you would like to be found for in the text of your website. Website designers and owners should create plenty of pages that display all of the content necessary to tell a search engine to show you as an expert for your keywords.

Take the time to look at your competitors’ websites and try and have at least as many pages as they do, if not more. One last important tip for local search is to take every opportunity to put your location in your text. This helps for Google Local rankings, and the value of your Alexa ranking means you can charge advertisers higher fees for placing banners on your blog.

Tip #2: Update Content Often With Local Information.

Take every opportunity to add new pages to your site which discuss local topics and events. Search engines will see that you are discussing local events with local keywords and move up your ranking as a local expert. Participate in local events and get your company name on charity and community websites with links back to your websites. These types of links are invaluable and can only be acquired through hard work and giving back to your community.

Tip #3: Use Available Resources – Some Recommendations and Examples Provided

One of the best tools we have found to help promote websites locally is the Google Business Tools suite. This amazing resource center allows website designers and managers analyze, manage, advertise, and invest in a websites online presence.Google has put most of their main business tools together in one location for easy use and understanding.

Check the relevant website design resources out, read about them, and sign up for the ones that apply to you: Google Website Optimizer, Google AdWords, Google Apps, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Base, Google Local Business Center and Amazon’s Alexa Internet Business Suite.

Tip #4: Pay Per Click – Monitor Closely and Spend Wisely

If you can set up and optimize your pay per click campaign it can be very successful and sometimes the results are amazing. That being said, we have witnessed many different cases where Pay Per Click advertising has burned through an entire budget in a couple of days. This can happen if you don’t take the time to read through the entire process before making your section. Use Local words in your PPC campaign to save money by competing locally instead of globally.Remember, spending money to make money is necessary, but spend wisely.

Tip #5: Local Search Engines: Google Maps, Yahoo! Local, Bing Local

This is an obvious and easy way to increase your local exposure. We have all use Alexa search tool that has given results with a map and indicator dots on related business locations. If you would like to come up for these types of local searches,carefully submit for these specialized location based results. The search engines will often request some sort of verification through call back or traditional mail and pin verification.

Tip #6: Yelp!

Take the time to list yourself on Yelp and register your business. Make sure that you spend the time on these postings that you would for any piece of marketing material for your business. Yelp!, or websites like it, is sometimes the only chance to give an impression you will have with a customer.Be careful. These types of listings are double edged swords. If you don’t maintain a high standard of service and quality, this will also be the location that customers will go to vent about their frustrations. These listings will also count as a quality inbound link for search and is useful to increase your search ranking.

Tip #7: Chambers of Commerce

You should become members with at least one local chamber of commerce. This is a great way to establish credibility and become a member of your local business community. Once you have this membership, make sure that your listing on the chamber website is a direct link to your website. Chambers of commerce are considered to be local experts, and their link to you is a valuable one.

Tip #8: CitySearch

CitySearch is very similar to Yelp in that it is a popular local search engine. Make sure that you spend some quality time explaining yourself and your business. You should also make sure to check back and monitor your reviews often.

Tip #9: Press Release Services, Face book, and Twitter

Social Media and local publicity can be very important for local results. Make sure to use locations and city information in your profile descriptions. Search engines will look at social media websites, and if you do a good job of mentioning local search words with your search engine keywords, you will begin to see additional results in the social media results sections of search engines. Press releases can be the most important local marketing item a business can employ.

Implemented wisely, a well optimized press release or social media blast can bring you first-page visibility for your keywords very quickly. Sometimes, you can take over more than one spot on the first page of Google. These same items used in their traditional roles of simple media notifications will get you nothing in terms of search results, make sure your marketing and PR companies know what they are doing. It could be hurting you. Your Alexa rank will tumble down and enhance your profile, even as your page rank climbs.

Improve the Delivery Side of Your Business With a Hyper Local Delivery App

India is turning out to be a hotbed for hyper-local delivery services that are either mobile-or web-based serving millions of users like never before. This year, a lot of brands including Google launched their own app-based local services platform and the services may range anything from food delivery, grocery, logistics services, home services, pharmacy to cashless transactions. The evolution of “Digital India” has only accelerated the efforts leading to a more flexible, service-oriented, solution-focussed and transparent business model in the web-and mobile-based e-commerce sector. As they start to grow, they seem to solve more of the existing local issues. Generating trust amongst customers with respect to the delivery segment is one of the biggest challenges that drive the major players to be active in the market.

With most apps in this niche, you can establish your product, menus, payment gateway, delivery schedule and set up the various branding elements such as logo, colour scheme, etc. You can change the look and feel of your store the way you want. This allows greater control over your orders, product delivery and business in general. As store customization is fast and easy, just with the click of a button, it requires no coding skills, developer or programming team on the part of the service provider.

A few apps are loaded with GPS-based routing and optimisation which means you can access it from anywhere and create routes and plans easily. Efficient delivery is supported by Automatic Order Consolidation and Deliverer Performance Optimisation feature in some mobile apps. Most apps offer service companies with end-to-end dedicated support and customisation.

Any app-based service firms looking to integrate delivery services should look if it can collect information from its POS/Website/App, optimize the delivery system through Route & Deployment feature, one-screen interface and access to all major delivery companies, interface with CRM through Point and Click type interface and capability to hire and organize/manage staff directly from one’s platform.

Most apps, these days, utilize propriety technology to augment the delivery end of business with no capital investment for app installation required at the user end, without any need to depend on on-demand delivery companies with options to build one’s own delivery network.

The ability of the hyper local delivery app to connect with a user’s POS or Web CMS is a welcome feature. This means a company does not have to look for multiple platforms for different features. The delivery app’s API should integrate with major POS systems available at the marketplace. It should be easily customizable with the existing user’s app features to suit requirements.