VerticalResponse Marketing Blog

Pinterest. Is this a term that makes you scratch your head, or does it describe your latest obsession? I can definitely say around our office, it's everyone’s latest obsession, and it looks like we're not alone. In December, 2011, Hitwise listed Pinterest as one of the Web's Top 10 and Time listed it as a Top 5 social network of 2011. comScore also reports that as of November, 2011, Pinterest had almost 5 million users.

And, according to Biz Report, new statistics, recently released by social sharing tools firm Shareaholic, reveal that Pinterest is pushing up the rankings to drive almost as much referral traffic (3.6%) as Twitter (3.61%) and Google (3.62%). In fact, Pinterest now drives more referral traffic than YouTube (1.05%), Reddit (0.83%) and Google+ (0.22%)!

Just check out this inforgraphic shared by the folks at Monetate:

 

So what is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social photo sharing pinboard and online community. It allows you to "pin" anything you find on the web, and organize it into themed image boards that you create. You can follow boards that others in Pinterest have created, find friends who're already there, or invite friends to join. Anyone can follow what you pin and "re-pin" those images onto their own boards. Recently, more businesses have started to use Pinterest to showcase not only their products, but other items related to what they do or sell.

Below are three ideas to help get your business off to a great start on Pinterest!

 

 

1. Create Interesting Boards – Pinterest allows you to create image boards that contain information pertinent to your business. Boards are customizable: you name your boards and select the category they fall under (i.e., apparel, photography, science and nature, travel).

 

2. Content – This is the fun part! The sky is the limit and all you need to be able to pin something is a URL. If you sell products, this is a no-brainer: Just add images to your boards, of the products you want people to see and share. But you don’t have to sell products to use Pinterest. If you offer a service, pin that! Add images to your boards that complement the services you offer. The fun part of Pinterest is that you can pin things that are related to your products or services, not just the things you offer. The image to the right has two boards of specific products this company sells, but also a selection of items that are related to their products, and even a few random things they found cool.

 

3. Share! – Pinterest has a goodies page where you can get a button to add to your site, blog or products to make pinning easy. Just a few steps will make following your business or sharing your products or services easy. The image here shows a company that's incorporated different ways for shoppers to share info about their products, including a Pin It button. This may or may not be my managers new headboard found while researching this post.

 

I’ve seen a few of the brands that I follow on Facebook also sharing their Pinterest boards. Using a social media platform to advertise another social platform? Awesome! All those followers you’ve cultivated will love to see more about your company in a new and exciting space. Plus, it gives you more resources that allow you to share and keep content fresh on social media. Also send an email to invite people to check out what's happening on Pinterest. Just like your Facebook or Twitter pages, you may need to invite your customers to find out what's going on and email (of course!) is great for that.

In just a small amount of time your business could see a boost via obsessed pinners! Adding a pin or two a week will also move your boards up in views, making it easy for people to find you. I can’t say how many ideas I've pinned while researching this blog, but luckily, my manager is just as obsessed with pinning as I am, so we'll count it as work.

Are you currently using Pinterest for your business, and what other ideas do you have for using Pinterest for your business?

 

Posted by Jill Bastian.

Jill Bastian is the Training and Education Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter @Jillieb3.

Let’s talk about Outlook. Microsoft’s venerable email client has a pretty steady grip on the email inboxes of Americans, probably due in no small part to Microsoft’s prevalence in the enterprise sector (and, being bundled with MS Office).

If your subscribers sit in an office cubicle in the U.S., they’re very likely to use it. Considering it’s been around at least since 1997, Microsoft has had plenty of time to improve its product, and by most measures has done so.

However, HTML rendering in Outlook stinks. Outlook 2003 uses Internet Explorer 6 to render HTML, which is pretty bad by modern standards. Outlook 2007 & 2010 render HTML using Word (yes, the word processor), which is an oil-tanker of offal come to dump its cargo full of suck on your day. If you’re an email marketer, email designer, or find yourself in the B2B client space, you’ve probably encountered some form of Outlook error. Your email looks pristine on your shiny iPhone, Android device, or web-based email client, but suddenly blows up when you open it up in Outlook. We’ve been there. We’re here to help.

I have two disclaimers. First, this article is for intermediate to advanced coders. You should be able to write and read HTML without a graphic interface to help you. Second, if you’re in the B2C space, or have a younger audience not privy to the whims of a corporate software buyer, you may be safe. At some point, the reward for investing the time designing and coding an email to beat Outlook’s messy rendering doesn’t pay off. If 1% of your client base is going to get a slightly less than optimal user experience for the extra 6 hours of work, you may find it worthwhile it to ignore Outlook entirely. Now that we've cleared that up, let's move on to the good stuff.

Things Outlook Doesn’t Support

Background Images: Outlook won’t display them at all. If you use a repeating background image, keep it fairly monochromatic and apply a background color as a backup. This is essential to keep HTML text displaying legibly.

Animated GIFs: Outlook will freeze an animated .gif on its first frame. (Boo)

CSS: CSS code displayed with the <head> tag can display erratically or not-at-all in many email clients, but it’s particularly nasty in Outlook. Keep your CSS styling in-line.

Bugs and Errors

There are a number of bugs and errors in Outlook, and I encounter new ones with some frequency. So while these are by no means all of Outlook’s bugs, here's a look at Outlook’s greatest (or worst): 

The Padding-Top Bug: Padding-top will be applied to all <td> tags in a row, even if you only apply it to one <td>. There are several workarounds that come to mind. The easiest fix, in my mind, is to eschew using top padding on a row and add margin to elements contained within table cells to control the space between the element and the top of the table cell. Be careful to write the margin shorthand (margin: 0 0 0 0) instead of long hand (margin-top: 0px). In the latter case, you risk encountering a Hotmail bug. You can also add a one-cell nested table, and add padding-top to that. But that seems a bit inelegant.

The 1,800 Pixel Bug: If you create long emails, like a large quarterly newsletter, Outlook can break your email at around 1800 pixels. Remember when we mentioned that Outlook 2007 and 2010 render using Word? In this case, Outlook is treating your email as multi-page word processor document, and is adding page breaks. Surprise!

Table-Cell Bug: For table-cells with images shorter than 12px, be sure to apply height to them or face Outlook’s wrath. Sidenote: I hope you’re specifying your table cell height as often as you need to anyway.

Adding Strokes to Tables: If you add a stroke to a table that contains other elements, Outlook can add extra space/padding. In general, be very careful when using strokes on table elements.

Line Heights: Outlook can have issues with line heights, specifically if you like to specify line-heights using a number like 1.3. When you set that number to a less than one, Outlook will crop your typography in odd ways. You can find a nice guide for line height reference here.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve read all the way down here, you may be a bit depressed by now. On the other hand, if you’ve been coding emails for a bit, you’ve probably internalized your rage and learned to expect the worst. The solution, simply, is to test, test, and test again. Testing for rendering issues is the only way to make sure your emails render consistently. Always send a test email to an inbox running Outlook.

The second solution is to fill your emails with useful content. Get feedback from your customers on what kinds of messages they want to read and email accordingly. Ultimately, useful content will trump a few graphic discrepancies any day of the week.

Extra Credit!

Read Microsoft’s guide to CSS support in Outlook 2007. The best part of this guide may be the comments section, where email designers have contributed a litany of woes.

Posted by Patrick Leahy.

Patrick Leahy is the Graphic Designer, Interaction Design Team at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter at @HelloPartick.

 

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Graymail and What It Means for Email Marketing

Email & Social Marketing - 2011 - A Year in Review

As small business owners we work hard to send out relevant and timely email newsletters to our subscribers with compelling subject lines. Did you know that typical subscribers spend just 51 seconds reading the average newsletter?

And, according to our friends at Marketing Sherpa, 69% of at-work email users usually view emails in their preview panes so you gotta hook 'em with your most important content right up front. That means the pressure is on, to not only provide great content, but also make it easy to access from the crowded inbox.

I'll walk you through a few of my favorite fast and easy tactics to make your e-newsletter catch customers' attention; hook, line and sinker!

Cast Your Bait - When a reader opens your newsletter you have 5-7 seconds to command their attention so ensure you have a table of contents in the upper right, left or top portion of your message. This will make it easy for your reader to quickly scan the contents and decide if they want to read something.

We use the TOC (table of contents) below in our weekly VR Buzz newsletter.

 

Drop Anchor - Employ one of our favorite tactics by anchor linking your table of contents to the desired content in the newsletter, allowing your reader to jump straight to what they want to read without all that annoying scrolling. And in doing this, you can also lead them down through your content and hope that other compelling information will grab their attention too. You can also anchor link pre-header text to drive readers down through your content.

Reel Them In - The real secret to success is to make it easy on your readers. Provide them with great content that they need and desire and half your work is done. Then provide it in short chunks or bulleted lists that are easy to scan. Also, remember to place your most important, interesting or desired content at the top. In old school terms, "above the fold." Many readers won't scroll, so it's often better to use short copy vs. long. If you have lots to say, you may be better off breaking your content into a series to run in multiple newsletters.

There you have it. Some simple tactics to reel your customers in using a table of contents, anchor links and great content. Want more tips? Join our Creating a Successful Newsletter free webinar today at 1 pm PST. Or check out our other webinars here.

 

Posted by Kim Stiglitz

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

 

 

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The Results Are in! Takeaways from VR Email Tests: CTA Edition

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Calling All NonResponders - Don't Give Up on Them Yet!

Welcome to Part 2 of our 12 Steps to Becoming a Natural at SEO. In Part 1, I covered the basics of SEO such as the difference between SEO and PPC, writing title and meta tags, structuring your URLs and website efficiently, or how having great content can help with generating organic traffic. So let's jump into #7-#12:

7. Get the Word (and Links) Out

If you're reading this blog, you probably have one of your own, along with Facebook, Twitter and all sorts of other social media pages. So why not take advantage of these online properties to boost the SEO value of your main website? Not only can you link back to it from those pages, you can leverage your existing online community whenever they choose to repost any content that you share. So once again, having fresh, interesting content is a great way to climb the rankings. 

Don't forget about offline promotion either: list your website URL on your business cards, tradeshow booths, direct mail pieces, etc. Building this reputation can only lead to faster discovery by those who are interested in what you have to offer, and by extension by search engines. 

8. Give your Links Extra Weight

Anchor text is the clickable text that users will see as a result of a link. It should be concise while being descriptive enough to tell users and search engines what the page you're linking to is about. For instance, linking sign up might be better than a generic click here when inviting people to your webinar.

You can use anchor links not just as external links to direct people to outside websites, but as internal links as well, which can help visitors and spiders navigate your website better. 

9.  Say It with More Than Words

You may think that images only serve to illustrate and break your text, since they can't be worth 1,000 (key)words to a spider, right? Au contraire, they are also a main component in optimizing your web page. See, each image you add has a different filename and alt text (just like in your emails), so in case a visitor is viewing your page using a browser that doesn't support images, he/she will still be able to read information about your picture instead of "image1.jpg."

• Use brief but descriptive filenames and alt text, mixing in some of those search query-friendly keywords we've discussed. 
• Supply alt text when using images as links, as it will help search engines understand more about the page you're linking to, just like what anchor text does for your text links. 
• Create an Image Sitemap file to provide spiders with more information about the images found on your site, similar to the XML Sitemap file I mentioned when talking about your site navigation. 

10. Get Mobile

We recently reviewed a few mobile sites that we loved, but before we can add yours to the list let's make sure we can find it!

• Make sure it is indexed by the main search engines: create a Mobile Sitemap once your mobile site is ready and submit it to the search engines to inform them of its existence. 
• Verify your mobile URLs are crawlable: some search engine have mobile-specific spiders, so check your mobile site's permissions in order to grant them access. Also (sorry to get all technical on you), make sure your URLs' Doc Type Definition (DTD) declaration is in an appropriate mobile format such as XHTML Mobile or Compact HTML.
• Redirect mobile users to the correct version: of course you'll want desktop users to access the desktop version of your site and mobile users the mobile one, not the other way around. Thankfully, search engines are able to detect the relationship between the desktop and mobile version of the URL if you redirect them accordingly. Also, point mobile users to the specific page they were looking for, not the homepage of your mobile version of your website by default. 
• Don't get flagged for "cloaking": cloaking is when a website tries to cheat the system by serving different content to spiders than to regular users in order to boost its rankings, which can lead to disappearing from search results, which would be bad. To avoid that, simply switch content based on User-agent in case your desktop and mobile URLs are identical.

11. Love Thy Numbers

Of course, after putting in all these efforts to optimize your website, you'll want to track the fruits of your labor. Tools such as Google Analytics and Omniture SiteCatalyst can provide you with in-depth metrics on how much organic traffic you are now attracting, which keywords are driving this traffic, how much revenue it is generating, how your competitors' websites are performing, etc.

Also, Google and Bing each offer their own version of Website Optimizer, a neat little tool that allows you to run tests on which on-page changes will generate the best results, conversion rate-wise. Did I mention how much we love testing here at VerticalResponse? 

12. Your Ultimate Consumers are your Users, not Search Engines

Despite all the technicalese I just shared with you, remember that your website is meant to be read by human beings, not electronic spiders. Some tweaks might help you gain a couple of spots in the organic rankings, but if they hinder the user experience then you will have taken 2 steps back instead of one forward. Your site's visitors are the main readers of your content and are using search engines to find it, so base your optimization decisions first and foremost on what's best for them.

And that concludes our 2-parter on getting started with SEO. Search isn't an exact science, just like email marketing it requires a lot of tweaking, tinkering and testing, but these 12 tips and tactics should give you a great head start.

What else have you done or planned on doing to boost your natural rankings?

 

Posted by My Truong

My Truong is the Marketing Programs Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter @PtitMy. 

 

 

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Internet memes ("meems"). What are they? They're widely mispronounced (don't feel bad, I thought it was "me me" too). They also equate to every marketer's dream: viral ideas, behavior or concepts that explode all over the internet into a frenzy of shares, likes, tweets and most notably, copycats.

There are good memes (that involve Ryan Gosling) and bad ones (like planking or Rebecca Black), but we all participate in the madness that makes them go viral. So how do these concepts get so much exposure and why do we care? Digging into the depths of a meme can teach us a thing or two regarding our own campaigns, whether it be email, content or social marketing. Let's learn from memes:

You Tell 'em - Content Marketing

The phrase "content is king" may be overused, but the concept isn't overrated. Becoming a storyteller of sorts when it comes to content marketing is vital if we really want to resonate with our audience. However, is catchy content enough to retain our readers? Bob Knorpp from The BeanCast said it best in AdAge: "We need to show people a richer story. We need to show them why they should be compelled to come back again and again and why they should share it with their friends. We need to think less like a movie and more like an episodic sitcom - an unfolding story that is greater than the story of each individual episode. This is the secret sauce of going viral."

An excellent example would be the series of infomercial videos by Blendtec. In each "Will it Blend?" video, Tom Dickson, founder of Blendtec, attempts to blend unique items in a mixer including a cell phone, a video camera, and most famously, their "Cochicken." The videos, piquing inquisitive minds, kept audience members coming back for more to witness the wacky and wild blend ups. Was this successful for Blendtec? Dickson is quoted as saying, "The campaign took off almost instantly. We have definitely felt an impact in sales. Will it Blend has had an amazing impact to our commercial and our retail products."

Quote Me On That - Embracing Competition

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and by now, co-creators Graydon Sheppard and Kyle Humphrey of the meme Sh*t Girls Say must feel like the prettiest 'girls' in the world. The YouTube videos of Graydon in drag spouting stereotypical phrases have spawned an uncountable number of Sh*t (someone) Say(s) videos. The competition includes: Sh*t Fashion Girls Say, Sh*t San Franciscans Say, Sh*t Nobody Says, and even Sh*t People Say About Sh*t People Say Videos. As you can see, the list is never ending and everyone wants a 'say.'

While the Sh*t Girls Say knockoffs aren't made by the original creators, the exposure only prolongs the life of their meme, expands their audience, and keeps the concept going strong. In an interview with The A.V. Club, Sheppard was asked about the copycats cropping up. "It’s absolutely flattering!" he says. "I mean, the Sh*t Black Girls Say guys credited us in the actual video, and below. And the other ones are all referencing back to us, so it only serves to bring more views to our videos. I’m not at all threatened. It’s fun to see people’s takes on it."

 

Tap That - Understanding Your Audience

It's hard to believe that actor Ryan Gosling is human, but (sigh) he actually is! Celebrities grace our computer screens all the time, so why is the "Hey Girl," Ryan Gosling meme, (from the F*ck Yeah! Ryan Gosling Tumblr blog) so 'goo-goo for Gosling' popular? It appeals to the right audience within the right social media platform.

Pictures of Gosling donning personal messages that start with "Hey Girl," resonate (i.e. tug at the heart strings & humor chords) of its readers. More than half of Tumblr's demographic is under the age of 25, and this particular meme, with a swoon-worthy celebrity, taps into their desires and keeps them coming back. The original Tumblr blog has spawned off equally popular Tumblr blogs including, Feminist Ryan Gosling, Handmade Ryan Gosling, and Silicon Valley Ryan Gosling.

If You Can't Beat 'em, Join 'em! - Relevancy

Not all of us will whip up the next big meme, but joining in on the fun (while giving appropriate credit), not only shows that your business can sell a product, but remain socially relevant and creative too. Jiffy Cabs created a newspaper ad using the meme "Socially Awkward Penguin," a series of pictures depicting a penguin with text narrating life's awkward moments. The ad stating, "Taking cab alone… Don't know whether to sit in front or back," honed in on the humor of a meme while tying it into their services. Who doesn't appreciate some humor and relevancy amongst the sell, sell, sell?

So tell me, which memes do you find successful and which ones do you think should just go away? (My favorites: Sh*t Fashion Girls Say (2), and Xzibit Yo Dawg).

 

Posted by: Colleen Corkery

Colleen Corkery is the Lifecycle Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @youcollme.

 

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Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and our inboxes are heating up with plenty of love-fueled messages touting everything from wine, to chocolate, massages and cards (yes please to all of the above!). Big Insight projects spending to rise nearly 9% over last year to reach $17.6 billion. With that much cash on the line, everyone is vying for a piece of your heart and your wallet.

I perused my own inbox for a few of my favorites based on using email best practices and thought I'd share the love.

Starting at the top with some standout subject lines:

• Hurry, Cupid's Counting Down! Send a Special Greeting Card
• Show your files some love
• For love or money?
• Valentine's Day gifts for your one and only.
• Free Shipping On Last Minute Valentine's Day Gifts
• You'll ❤ Key Pieces for the Season
• We've got a crush (or two). How about you?
• Make Valentine's Day Oh-So-Dreamy! Plus, Get $15 Off $100
• Ten Ways to Say "I Love You"
• The clock is ticking! Send Rebecca a Valentine's Day bouquet from just $29.99
• Cupid's Here with Wine, Chocolates & $0 Shipping
• Who's the object of our fashion affection this month?
• Here's 50% off for Valentine's Day. Go on, take it. Nobody's watching...
• Will You Be Our Valentine? Sweepstakes, News, & More To Show Our LUV
• The Perfect Couple: NOOK and a Free $25 Gift Card
• New ♥ PDF Pattern & Made with #%*!?
• Last Chance to Get the Look You Love Before V-Day

Of course, I am always a sucker for cute creative this time of year and these had me swooning:

Invino was totally brand aware with their cork heart!

 

Next up is Southwest Airlines who used the classic conversation hearts to start a Valentine's Day conversation with their subscribers:

Next is Uncommon Goods who delivered the good with their top ten gift list:

 

And, showing the B2B companies can get into the Valentine's spirit, this example from YouSendIt.com:

 

How will you share the love this Valentine's Day and get a piece of that $17.6 billion?

 

Posted by Kim Stiglitz.

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

 

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Sixteen-year-old Jack’s goal with his online startup, Skimling, is to connect high schoolers who want feedback on their essays with teachers willing to critique them – for a small fee. Fifteen-year-old Hana designs and sells whimsical jewelry, clothing and accessories through her business, Hanacorn. And eighteen-year-old Alex is honing his craft through his own video production company, Last Decade Films. (Check out his video entry below!) 

 

These three amazing teen entrepreneurs are just a handful of more than two dozen entries we received for our Next Teen Tycoon video contest. Now it’s time for you to help choose the top 10 finalists!

Now through February 24, anyone can vote for their favorite teen entrepreneurs on our Next Teen Tycoon website. You must have a Facebook account to vote, and you can vote for a video once per day.

The 10 entries with the most votes will move on to become finalists, and from the finalist pool our panel of judges will select the three winners. The grand prize winner gets $4,000 in “seed money” to help launch or grow his/her business as well as a free trip to the TEDxTeen conference in the Big Apple, while two second-place winners each receive $2,000 in “seed money”!

So head on over to our Next Teen Tycoon website, click on "View Entries" and vote for your favorites daily!

 

Posted by Connie Sung Moyle

Connie Sung Moyle is the Public Relations Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @sungmoyle.

 

 

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Calling All Teen Entrepreneurs: Enter Our Next Teen Tycoon Contest and Win!

At my first job out of business school, I was tasked with implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for the website of the company where I worked. First, as green as I was, I knew this was a big deal and was shocked at the fact that it hadn't been undertaken yet. I mean, in a day and age where people don't even bother typing in URLs anymore and just go straight to Google or Bing, what's the point of having the best product/service in the world if no one will be able to find it? Second, I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by the amount of information available and work that needed to be done on our website at the time.

I stepped back, took a deep breath, and proceeded to strip it down to a few basic action items that could help boost our rankings in relatively quick fashion. And guess what? It worked out pretty well. After a few months our natural search traffic increased 213% year over year! So I thought I'd share 12 tips and tricks that helped increase our organic rankings. This is the first of two posts that will each contain 6 SEO take-aways. Fret not, they're no Labors of Hercules, but they should be more than enough to give you a proper foundation to start optimizing your website.

1. SEM vs. PPC vs. SEO: WTH?

You've probably seen these acronyms floating around as you were doing your research (the first 3 at least). Here's a refresher on what they mean:

• SEM/PPC: Search Engine Marketing and Pay Per Click usually refer to a form of online advertising that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising and paid inclusion. In some instances, SEM is used as the umbrella term for both PPC and SEO. Paid results can be found at either the top or right hand-side of search result pages. 
• SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or web page in search engines via unpaid search results, otherwise known as "natural" or "organic" results. In general, the earlier or higher a page gets ranked on the search results page, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. Unpaid results constitute the main portion of these results. 

Here's a visual that shows it in action: 

Above is what you typically get when typing "VerticalResponse" into a search engine. In the red rectangle are the paid search results, and in blue, the organic ones. 

 

2. Create Brief, Unique and Accurate Page Titles

Let's go back to our previous search results:

When your web page comes up in the listings, the title tag will appear in the first line and link to said page. You can also find it at the top of your browser window:

When writing a title tag, try to keep these best practices in mind:

• Make sure it accurately describes the page's content and effectively communicates its topic. For example, you can list the name of your website/company and a few bits of information about what the company does, using keywords that are likely to be typed in user search queries. In our case, "email marketing" or "social media" would be good options. 
• Make your title tag unique for each page so that "search spiders" (the programs that "crawl" websites on behalf of the search engines) will know that given page is distinct from the others on your site.
• Keep it brief and to the point as users want to be able to scan through results and click on what seems most relevant to their query in a hurry. Also, as with email subject lines, if your title is too long the search engine or browser header will only show part of it. 

 

3.  Paint the Picture with your Meta Tags

A page's description meta tag gives searchers and search engines a summary of what the page is about. It's usually the paragraph located below the title tag in your results:

Notice I said "usually." Sometimes the search engine might decide that another portion of your page is more relevant to the query and show it instead of the actual meta tag. To make sure that doesn't happen and your carefully crafted description gets the attention it deserves, here are a couple of tips:

• Accurately summarize the page's content. Write a description that both informs and interests users enough to draw their mouse pointer toward your link. 
• Use unique meta tags for each page. Just like for title tags, each page should get its own distinct description, especially in cases where multiple pages from your website show up in the same search query. 

 

4. Clean Up Your URLs

In addition to the title and meta tags, simple to understand URLs will be more click-friendly to users, while informing them of the exact content of your page. For example, if given a choice between http://www.verticalresponse.com/email-marketing and http://www.verticalresponse.com/0123456789/9876543210, which one would you click? My thoughts exactly. 

• Use relevant keywords in your URLs. Not only will this help visitors remember your links better and make them more willing to click on them as mentioned above, it will make the URLs easier for spiders to crawl as well. 
• Provide one version of a URL to reach a document. Use and refer to one unique URL for a given document to avoid splitting the reputation of that content between different URLs.
• Allow for the possibility of your URL being truncated. Consider what might happen if a user removes part of your URL, either voluntarily or accidentally. For example if a user were to shorten http://www.verticalresponse.com/email-marketing/social-sharing to http://www.verticalresponse.com/email-marketing/, you'll want to make sure it actually takes him/her to an existing page. This, however, is tied into your website's navigation structure. 

 

5. Throw Away the Ariadne Thread

The term "Ariadne Thread" harks back to the mazes and labyrinths made famous in Greek mythology. While making for great narrative, getting around your website should not be as complicated. A website's navigation is important in helping visitors find the content they want quickly, while at the same time helping search engines understand what the webmaster thinks is important. So to avoid either group getting lost, you can follow these few basic steps: 

• Create a simple, naturally flowing directory structure. Your site's directory structure should organize your content well, allowing users to go from general to more specifc content and letting them know where exactly they're at on your site. 
• Use mostly text for navigation. This will help spiders crawl and understand your site better, unlike Flash or JavaScript. 
• Put an HTML sitemap page on your site, and use an XML Sitemap file. The former will help your human visitors find what they're looking for, the latter will do the same thing, but for search engines. 
• Have a useful 404 page. If a visitor lands on a page that doesn't or no longer exists, instead of serving a generic "404 not found" page that will irritate him/her more than anything, why not create a custom one that provides links directing back to the more helpful content on your site?

 

6. Content is King, Always

Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other optimization techniques discussed here. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site's reputation the most with both users and search engines. Beyond creating quality and well-written content, anticipate differences in users' understanding of your topic. In other words, keep in mind the different variations of search keywords or keyword phrases that users could type in while performing a search. For example, a seasoned email marketer might look for "CTA" while a new one might use a more general query like "action button."

Whoops, looks like my time is up. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our primer on SEO in the coming days, where we'll tackle some more exciting topics such as promoting your site, reporting (yes, numbers *can* be fun!) or how to make sure the mobile version of your site gets found. In the meantime, feel free to try out some (or all) of the tips outlined above and let us know how they worked for you!

 

Posted by My Truong

My Truong is a Marketing Programs Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter @PtitMy.

 

 

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This article by VerticalResponse CEO and founder Janine Popick originally appeared on Inc.com.

 Throwing a company event is a fantastic way to meet new people, spread the word about your business and have some good old-fashioned fun. But if you’re the organizer, it can be quite intimidating. How do you get the word out? Will anyone show up? Will people get bored? Here are a few ideas to combat some of the biggest event planning fears, so you and your guests can focus on having a great time. 

1) No one will come.
The key here is to promote the event like crazy in your store (if you have one), as well as on your website, blog and social media networks. Local media often have calendar or community events sections that you can submit your soiree to. Setting up an online event marketing page that you can direct people to is an easy and inexpensive way to gauge interest and manage RSVPs; there are plenty of online event marketing tools out there. Creating a Twitter #hashtag and encouraging people to tweet about it also helps drum up anticipation and excitement.

 

Don’t forget email marketing campaigns, which you can use to communicate event details, send out updates and offer special promotions or discounts. Consider adding a sense of urgency (“Only 150 seats left!”) as the event nears. With email campaigns, make sure you’re sending out plenty of reminders. It’s a good rule of thumb that only about 50 percent of people who RSVP to a free event will ultimately attend.

2) People aren’t mingling.
While name tags aren’t exactly fun (especially if you’re caught wearing one several hours after an event), they’re incredibly helpful in getting people to mingle with one another. Try including an unexpected bit of information on them to get people talking. Also place food, beverages and seating in different areas, which will encourage people to move about the room.

3) People take off early, or won’t leave.
Organization is key for any event. Everything should be set up and ready to go before the “early birds” arrive. If you’ve got scheduled things going on during the event, hand out printed programs so people know the timeline. In the same vein, create a “soft” end time for your event. As the hour approaches, gently and politely remind people that the event is winding down, but don’t be too strict on exactly what time they leave. Most people won’t linger.

4) Uninvited party crashers show up.
Inevitably you’re going to have a couple of unwanted guests. Disgruntled former employees, your competition, maybe even your ex. You’ve heard the saying: If you can’t beat them, join them. The same applies here. Surprise them by being the first to say hello. Hopefully any grievances they have will be discussed with you privately, and not with the rest of your guests.

5) Someone’s knocked back one too many cocktails.
It’s bound to happen. But how do you deal with it? Start with the bartender(s) and instruct them to limit the amount of drinks given out to any one person and to offer water, coffee or juice as a substitute. Should someone be over served, find him/her a cab or a ride home.

Try as you might to plan for everything, rarely does an event happen without a single hitch. If something unexpected happens, keep your cool. Get your employees to pitch in. Know that you did your best, and everyone else will, too!

 

Posted by Janine Popick.

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at@janinepopick, and check out more of her Inc.com columns.

 

 

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As the director of lifecycle marketing at VerticalResponse, I'm often asked to speak at, or have members of my team speak at industry events. After presenting and attending many of these over the years, we've compiled a list of the most relevant and rewarding events for any small business and marketer.

February:

• Marketing Sherpa Email Summit - Las Vegas, NV 
• Email Evolution Conference - Hollywood, FL
• Technology For Marketing & Advertising - London, UK

March:

• 7th Annual Small Business Summit - New York City, NY
• SXSW
• Orange County's Largest Mixer - Los Angeles, CA

April:

• Ad:Tech - San Francisco, CA
• Nonprofit Technology Conference -  San Francisco, CA

May:

• Small Business Week - San Francisco, CA

June:

• Blog World & New Media Expo - New York City, NY

September:

• Content Marketing World - Columbus, OH
• Dreamforce - San Francisco, CA 

October:

• DMA 2012 - Las Vegas, NV

And, if travel isn't in your budget this year, you can also join us for our free webinars, which can be enjoyed from the comfort of your chair (no baggage fees or delayed flights necessary). Check out the lineup here. New webinars are announced each quarter and there are recorded versions here.

 

Posted by: Kim Stiglitz

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

 

 

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When it comes to mobile websites, haters are gonna hate and boy, do they! In my quest and request of others to direct me towards their favorite mobile sites, the sound of crickets echoed in my eardrums. However, once I inquired about unfavorable mobile sites, the list was so long, I was sorry I asked! 

People are passionate about their mobile web navigation, and for a reason: They’re using their smartphones non-stop (guilty as charged). According to Morgan Stanley, by the year 2014, mobile Internet will surpass desktop Internet usage. That's a lot of on-the-go Internet browsing! With 1.08 billion smartphones in the world, maintaining a mobile site that satisfies is vital if you want to keep people coming back. Today, I’ll share the love and discuss three exceptional mobile sites you just can't hate. Let's learn from the pros:

1. Pitchfork Media
(m.pitchfork.com) 

As a music addict, wanting the latest and greatest music news at my fingertips quickly is of the utmost importance. Having the ability to actually read all of this information from an iPhone screen, in the words of David Bowie, “it ain’t easy.” Pitchfork, a music webzine, has incorporated the technology on its site to detect your pint-sized mobile device. After detecting your mobile, the site immediately directs you to the easy-to-read mobile version instead of dumping you onto a larger-than-life interface with microscopic font. The option to switch to a desktop version of the site is also available, if you so desire.
 
The site navigation is simple and clean, while still providing me with all of the music news, reviews, tracks, videos and features I’d normally find on the homepage of the desktop version. There's also a convenient menu tab at the very top that allows me to quickly navigate throughout the entire site.
 
Highlights: Mobile device detection, simple, easy and well thought out layout, yet still includes all aspects of original site.

 
2. ESPN
(m.espn.go.com)

I’ll admit, I don’t watch, follow, or play sports. However, I received such positive feedback regarding this particular mobile website, I had to check it out, and guess what? It’s pretty fun, even for someone as sports-challenged as myself. The site is not only optimized for nearly every mobile platform, it also provides fans with timely updates and immediate access to whichever team or sport your action-packed heart so desires. The most exciting aspect of the mobile site is “my ESPN” in which you can customize the site to your particular interests, speeding up your access to all things involving a ball, puck, or… see, I am bad at sports.
 
Highlights: Mobile optimization, timely updates, grouped sports pages, easy navigation, preference settings.

 

3. Airbnb
(m.airbnb.com)

This San Francisco start-up has seen dramatic growth since its inception in 2008. The site connects people worldwide who are looking for a temporary place to rent or rent out vs. taking your typical hotel or hostel route. Destination listings cover more than 19,000 cities, 192 countries and the site alone has made more than 100 million social connections.

This mobile site deserves major props for its aesthetically pleasing design. Rental listings are beautifully listed including pricing, map location, reviews and more including all necessary info that is easily organized and found under description, details and amenities tabs. A filter button on the homepage allows you to specify your searches depending on availability, and a fun pricing scale lets you slide your way into a preferred budget. You can also sign in via your Facebook account.

Highlights: Beautiful design, details, details, details (with little fuss), Facebook integration, slide and tap features for info-hungry hands.

 

 
Finding a fast mobile site that adheres to your device, is easy on the eyes, and doesn’t skimp on the details may seem like a dream (that you’d like to watch on your smartphone), but they're out there! So tell me, which mobile sites have you found that pleasantly surprise you, and which ones make you want to scream?

 

Posted by: Colleen Corkery

Colleen Corkery is the Lifecycle Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @youcollme.

 

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Regardless as to whether you’re cheering for the Giants or the Patriots in the upcoming Super Bowl on February 5, chances are you’ll tune in to watch not only the game, but the commercials too. Advertisers are bringing sexy back as H&M debuts a 30-second ad starring David Beckham wearing nothing more than his boxers, and Go Daddy has Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels painting the body of a super model.

The Times reports that NBC is charging an average of $3.5 million for 30 seconds of airtime. Sponsors are already creating hype around the expensive ads to get the best return on their investment.

So, without a gazillion dollar budget and Hollywood celebs or super models, how can your small biz leverage the Super Bowl hype and score with your customers? Prepare to take the snap and execute a strong offense with these tips:

Just Do It: Super Bowl hype is building. Even if your business doesn’t cater to the “typical” football crowd, you can still capitalize on the theme. For instance, use a football themed subject line to capture attention in the inbox and leverage the theme in your email marketing template or in your messaging. Just because you don't sell TVs, food or beer doesn't mean you can't have some fun and be creative with your message.

Try subject lines like:

• Are you ready for some savings?
• Kick off the savings in time for the Super Bowl
• Super Bowl Super Deals
• Score! Save 50% off + Free Shipping
• Down, Set, Savings!

Last year, fashion retailer Banana Republic pulled this off in a winning campaign cited in Sherry Chiger's article on the The Big Fat Marketing Blog. BR used a staid subject line for its email, sent Friday before the game: “Super Bowl savings: 25% off! + FREE Shipping Every Day.” The body of the message, however, played off a corny joke: “What was the cheapskate’s favorite football play? To get the quarterback.” Amid drawings meant to resemble a coach’s play diagrams, and a headline read, “This weekend only get a quarter back. 25% off all full-priced items.” Banana Republic managed to link a sporting event to women’s fashion in a simple yet effective way.

 

 

I was super impressed with the email I received from Kiva this past Friday with the subject line, Super Bowl Friday. It grabbed my attention because I thought was does Kiva have to do with the Super Bowl.  Turns out that is exactly what they intended and it worked. They even wrote a blog about it here. Kiva does a brilliant job spinning the Super Bowl into an opportunity to get their users and prospects thinking about making a microloan.

Check out the top of the fold creative from their email:

 

 

Kiva set up two lending teams based on the Giants and the Patriots and does a great job with their messaging. Touchdown Kiva!

Go Small: Yep, I said go small. While the big guys will be paying out the wazoo for a 30-second ad, you can produce your own mini commercial and upload it to YouTube. Include a link to the video in your email and use a subject line like, "Check out VerticalResponse's Super Bowl Commercial!" All you need is a camera or phone with video recording capabilities, some creativity and you're good to go.

Use Your Special Teams: While email marketing is your quarterback for delivering your message to your receivers, make sure you call in your special teams: Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn, to reach a wider audience. You can send a link to your above-mentioned video to your social networks and cross your fingers it goes viral!

Party: That's right, I am telling you to have a party. Rent a big screen TV and show the game in your location. Offer food and beverages and special savings to anyone who shops during the game. You can offer discounts based on the score, the number of touchdowns, etc. You can even use our Event Marketing tool to plan a great event.

Target the Non-Ballers: Though 111 million people tuned in to watch the Super Bowl last year, that still leaves lots of folks who are tuned out and looking for something, anything to do that doesn't involve football, so cater to these people too. This is especially beneficial if your business is slightly less attuned to the whole football aesthetic. You can host a special event or sale for these folks too. Theme it around a football respite or, "Who Cares About the Super Bowl?" Your non-ballers will certainly appreciate it.

What will you do to promote your biz during the Super Bowl?

Posted by Kim Stiglitz.

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

 

 

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Photo credit: Sebastian Bergmann

We're already a few weeks into 2012 and I don't know about you, but some of my New Year's resolutions have already started falling by the wayside (gym membership, what?). One thing I am happy to say I've stuck to, is testing a lot of different things in my email communications. This isn't just because testing is an integral part of my job, but also because I'm a huge data geek (nerd?) and am always looking to learn more about my intended readers' behavior. So I thought it might be fun to share some of these tests in a series of blog posts throughout the year. Maybe you can take advantage of some of these findings too!

 

The Tale of the Tape

In this post I'll be going over a test we ran on the positioning of a call-to-action button (you can call it CTA) for one of our promotional emails. Originally, our emails would look like this (version A):

Then we thought, why don't we make the CTA the first thing the recipient sees when he/she opens the email, well above the fold? So we drafted up the following (version B):

We made sure to tag the links for the CTA and banner images in both versions with referred-by codes (simply add "/?REFERREDBY=XXX" at the end of your URLs, with REFERREDBY and XXX being something relevant to you, for example in our case we used "/?image=CTA" and "/?image=banner") in order to differentiate them in VerticalResponse's reporting tool. We set up both versions with identical offers and messaging, with a separate mailing list each, and off the emails went.

And the Winner is...

Results were rather surprising: version B's CTA button garnered about the same amount of clicks as version A's, but its clickthrough rate (unique number of clicks divided by total number of opens) overall was superior by 12% while bringing in over 33% more revenue. Version B by decision victory!

Surprised by these results? What kind of tests would you be interested in reading about moving forward?

Posted by My Truong

My Truong is the Marketing Programs Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter @PtitMy.

 

 

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Photo credit: Jeffrey Beall

If there's anything I've learned from the Tim Tebow craze, it's that giving the right pitch to the right (or wrong) audience can get your name out there, for better or for worse. If your message is irrelevant, if it is controversial or if you're too aggressive in the delivery, you may end up polarizing your audience or losing followers. Being known for something, whether it's good or bad, may be beneficial in the media world, but in business communications being infamous can hit you right in the pocketbook. In order to keep your business in the best light, follow these five B2B email best practice tips.  

1. Connect with your receivers - We've all got a lot of interesting things to say about our business or industry, but bombarding your recipients with too much information will overwhelm them and most likely make them sack your message (otherwise known as delete or unsubscribe). Create your message with relevant and engaging headlines and digestible chunks of content so busy readers can easily scan for valuable information.

2. Get them into the end zone - Design your message with a clear purpose in mind. Whether you want recipients to sign up for a free trial, attend an event or visit your website, the next step should be evident. Each message should have a main call-to-action. Including the same call-to-action more than once can help reinforce the end goal by giving recipients multiple opportunities to take the next step.

3. Target your fans - It's tough to create one newsletter or promotional email that will successfully engage members of multiple industries, titles and interests. Make your message relevant by segmenting your lists to offer useful and pertinent information to distinct audiences.

4. Spread your coverage - Include social sharing and forward to a friend links in your emails. This allows you to leverage your current customer base and their social networks for referrals and new business. You can also track how popular your emails are by tracking link clicks and social shares.

5. Run the drills - The best way to create effective emails is to examine your analytics and reporting to see what's working and what's not. Continue to make your messaging more effective by refining subject lines, calls-to-action, image placement, headlines, send times, cadence and more!

Using these tactics can help you score big with your readers. Do you have a particular tip or practice you've found beneficial in your B2B communications?

Posted by Savannah Stewart

Savannah Stewart is a Lifecycle Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @savannahstewart.

 

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I don’t want this to be one of those nostalgic posts that remember the “good old days” on one of the more popular social networks. No, I just want to share some very unscientific findings that made me scratch my head.

See, I’ve been on Twitter for almost four years now. Not as long as some of the more pronounced early adopters, but long enough to see the changes in the social network for better or worse. Like I said earlier, this is not a post to bash on what Twitter is today, but just to bring to light what those changes are and get input from other users to see if they're observing some of the same things.

So, to set the stage, let me tell you a little about the Twitter environment I reside in. As of this publishing, I have tweeted 25,406 times, I have 5,652 followers and I follow 607 people. And the makeup of those 607 people equate to some of the most socially savvy people in the Twitterverse.

To obtain a sample for this post, I categorized 100 tweets in my stream starting at 1:12 pm on January 23, 2012. I broke them into fairly distinct categories, but you will see that a few could have been combined (i.e., Foursquare, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.). I chose to leave them as separate categories, though. The tweets broke out as follows:

Type of Tweet                                                             # Tweets

 

 

Links (a tweet with a clickable link)

     53

Conversation (tweets with people actually conversing)

     15

Status Updates

     13

Retweet

     11

Foursquare Update

     4

Spotify Update

     1

Pinterest Update

     1

YouTube Link 

     1

Instagram Update

     1

So what are my observations from the findings? Well at least in my world, conversation has taken a back seat to sharing other pieces of content in a big way. Not to say this is a bad thing. After all, I'd be the first to admit that I source a large percentage of my content consumption via Twitter. I do, however, miss those multi-person conversations that would be moving so fast it would be hard to keep up. They were entertaining and provided different points of view on a multitude of subject matter in one easy to digest package.

But enough about my Twitter experience circa 2012, I’d love to hear your observation of today’s foremost micro blogging network! Let me know your thoughts.

 

Posted by Derek Overbey

Derek Overbey is the Senior Social Media Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter at @doverbey.

This article originally appeared on iMedia Connection, an online resource covering the latest and greatest in interactive marketing.

In a market that’s saturated with mass email campaigns for every product and service known to man, being able to consistently strike a chord with your customers isn’t easy.

High-level customization of email marketing campaigns usually requires collecting various types of data on your customers, segmenting your lists and using (and paying for) complex enterprise-level tools. But for many of us – especially the small agency or small business marketer – we need to start our email marketing efforts pronto without spending a whole ton of money.

Thankfully, there are ways to make it seem like your campaigns are customized even if all you have are the basics. How? Take your content cue from seasonal shifts, news headlines and even weather fluctuations.

Here are a few examples from big brands where this type of approach works well:

Baskin Robbins: To combat an inevitable dip in ice cream sales during the chillier months, they served up a double scoop of savings with a BOGO coupon (Buy One Get One Free) for their aptly-named Bobsled Brownie cones. Subject line: "Slide into Winter with December's Flavor of the Month."

Cole Haan: Their post-Black Friday campaign offered exhausted holiday shoppers a chance to both pamper themselves and score a year's worth of freebies. (In exchange for an email address, of course!) Subject line: "TREAT yourself: Enjoy 25% off AND enter to win 12 months of shoes."

Kaiser Permanente: The healthcare provider's December e-newsletter got a timely (and flavorful) boost by including a heart-smart winter soup recipe. Subject line: "Warm up your holidays with our lentil soup."

Recyclebank: They gently nudged members to earn extra points redeemable for free stuff by either pledging to reduce energy consumption and consumer waste, or by playing the latest, seasonally-themed game called “Green Your Seasons.” Subject line: "Last Days! 'Green Your Seasons Winter' is open, did you get your 90 points yet?"

Of course, you can kick it up another notch by automatically including the subscriber’s first name in the subject line, if you collect that information; most email service providers offer this feature.

Have you spotted any examples of “customized” marketing based on timely happenings or seasonal trends? Let us know!

 

Posted by Janine Popick.

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter and check out more of her iMedia Connection columns.

Valentine's Day 2012 is coming fast! According to the experts at the National Retail Federation, retail spending for the holiday will increase nearly 13 percent this year - that's huge! On top of this, the average person will spend $116.21 on traditional Valentine’s Day merchandise this year, an increase of 12.8% over 2011’s total, with expenditures on jewelry and clothing expected to rise substantially.

This makes this Valentine's Day the fourth most popular shopping holiday of the year, just behind the winter holidays of Christmas/Hanukkah, Back-to-School and Mother’s Day.

How can you share in the love-fest and reap the rewards this Valentine's Day? The good news is, no matter what industry you're in, or kind of business you have, you can capitalize on the theme. And, the time to get started is now!

Here are a few quick tips and tactics to get you and your readers feeling the love:

Work with the theme, but be a bit unexpected - Since everyone and their brother will be sending out emails with hearts, cupids and roses on them and subject lines with references to love, you'll want to ensure your emails and direct mail pieces stand out from the crowded mailboxes both online and off.

One way to catch your subscribers' attention is to put a creative spin on the theme and use the basics of content marketing 101 - tell a story to connect with your audience. For example, if you sell jewelry, tell a story behind symbolism of a particular precious stone that's used, or share a story of how a piece is created. You can even share the meanings behind Valentine's traditions or fun facts, like how many roses or how many pounds of chocolate will be sold this year. (The answer? 110 million roses and 1.1 billion boxes of chocolates will be sold throughout the U.S.) This way, you'll draw your recipient in and will hopefully get them to react.

Gift guides make shopping easy - Send an email marketing campaign or direct mail postcard with gift ideas by price point for him and her. If you're sending an email, try including a call-to-action button that encourages your readers to Buy Now. You can also use this free tool to make your own free custom button.

Use social to share the love - It's easier than ever to extend the reach of your messages to potential and new customers by sharing your email content on your social networks. Check out Roost by VerticalResponse, a free tool that lets you easily and quickly create a campaign of posts across all your social networks. The best part is you can do it all from one place and not have to log into Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn separately. You'll have your Valentine's Day campaign ready in a flash! You can also extend the life of your email campaign by sharing the hosted version to your social networks. You've spent the time to create it, now make sure as many people as possible can see it.

Be careful with your subject line - This is a great tip from our pals at the Retail Email Blog about not shortening Valentine's Day to V-Day in your subject line or tweets to save characters. V-Day has a number of meanings and associations, generally violent. Email marketers are always looking to trim characters from their subject lines, but this may not be the best way to shorten "Valentine’s Day."

How will you message your audience this Valentine's Day?

Posted by Kim Stiglitz.

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

Who and what exactly are nonresponders? These are subscribers who continue to get your emails, but haven't opened, clicked or responded in a long time, if ever.

We've all read the advice to clean up our email lists and get rid of the "dead weight," the unengaged, the nonresponders. But wait! Have you tried to reengage them before you cut them loose?

More than 90% of consumers unsubscribe, “unlike” or stop following brands because of too frequent, irrelevant or boring communications.

Did you read that, 90%! And that b-word...BORING! I'm sure you've never, ever delivered said boring content and only provide the most timely, relevant information exactly as you promised your subscribers when they signed up for your list. But, if you've ever been guilty of not delivering on your promise (ahem, guilty as charged) then read on and we'll explore how to come back from the dark side and reengage the people on your list who may have gone quiet.

Provide Value with a Capital V: Are you providing value for your subscribers? Your goal is to make sure that your content meets or exceeds subscribers' expectations. But how to know that? Do you guess? Make assumptions? No! Send a quick survey to your subscribers and ask them questions related to why they subscribed and how the content you provide meets those expectations. If you find a disconnect between what you're providing and what your subscribers expect, it's time for a change. Remember that people opt in for different reasons and want different content. You may need to look at segmenting your list and content to provide the most relevant information to keep your subscribers coming back for more.

A great example of this is an email I received recently from Open Table reminding me of the restaurants I visited by booking though their system in 2011. All my visits were merged in the email. Great use of personalization and targeted messaging.

You can also send a specific email to your nonresponders reminding them of the value and why they subscribed in the first place. Just ensure you're delivering what you promised!

Test It! Try taking the last email campaign you sent that had a decent open and clickthrough rate and download your list of nonresponders (Sent emails - Reports - Download Lists - All nonresponders). Now, make a copy of your last email and try changing a single element, the easiest and fastest being the subject line. Now resend it to just your nonresponders and see what happens. Check out our recorded webinar Testing Your Email & Lists for Success for more tips. And, we also have a killer marketing guide: Testing, Testing 1,2,3 here.

Change the Channel: Going after nonresponders through email alone might not be enough, but have no fear because you can use email's best friends, direct mail and social media. How? It's pretty simple really. You can print up some simple inexpensive direct mail postcards and ask your nonresponders to come back and update their email address. Up to 30% of your email list can go bad in a single year alone due to people changing their email addresses. You can also reach out via your social media channels like Facebook & Twitter and ask people to visit your website and re-opt in via your opt-in form. Adding a special offer to this like "come back and save 30%" can provide a little incentive and reward to your subscribers for making the effort as well. 

Reactivating nonresponders can take a bit of effort, but if you get them back, you will regain a valuable resource.

What have you done to reactivate your nonresponders? I'd love to share your tactics.

Posted by Kim Stiglitz

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

You may have gone to Google today and got a bit of a surprise, the site's logo is blacked out. Wikipedia and many other sites also have their home pages altered. 

What's going on with this? It's an online protest to two bills: Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. You can find full text of these bills in PDF form here for SOPA and here for PIPA.

Both of these bills are designed to tackle the problem of websites that distribute pirated content like movies and music. The problem is that most of these sites are located outside the U.S. Because it's tough to police sites outside the U.S. for this pirated content, these bills put the onus on sites like Google to make it hard for people to find these sites, and sites like YouTube to police what people post to their networks. The bills would effectively enable content owners (think movie studios and record labels) to shut down sites that they believe are violating copyright.

While these sites do agree with all content owners that pirated content is illegal, the main point that they're trying to make with their online protest is that it's impossible to enforce this legislation without promoting censorship and without completely changing the way their businesses run. Many of the protesting businesses do support legislation against piracy of some sort, but argue that SOPA and PIPA as written do not represent the best course of action. Even the White House has indicated that these specific bills are not the right solution.

How do you feel about these bills? Will they affect your business?

 

Posted by Janine Popick.

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter.

2011 has come and gone and it's time to take a look at your mailing lists and give them a refresh for 2012.

Mailing lists perform differently over time; some addresses become invalid, some recipients change their email habits and some continue to be engaged in your emails.

Using our segmentation tool allows you to easily find out what's going on with your recipients and create lists based on engagement. Ok, now you're probably thinking "I'm a busy, small business owner, I don't think I have time to do this!" 

There are a few compelling reasons to invest a little time in your lists: To help get your email to the inbox, you want to make sure your lists are clean and you understand how they perform. And, once your lists are set up, you can send out emails to target your recipients in different ways. Targeting parts of your list with information that they're interested in can increase engagement and help your business or organization grow. 

For example, if you're a winery, you can set up your lists based on your customers' favorite wine varietal (i.e., Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot, etc.). This works for any business type and non-profits too; sort your lists by active donors, volunteers, or event participants.

Why should you do this? Your recipients will appreciate having an email sent to them that is tailored to their interests, and they'll be more apt to open the email and click on links. After you've sent out a few emails, take a look at your reporting to find out who's opening your emails consistently and/or clicking on links. You can use the segmentation tool to create lists of recipients who have opened your email and/or clicked on links. These will be your engaged recipients; the people who are eager to read your email when you send it out. You can send special offers, sneak peek information on sales, new products or services, and even mail to them more frequently. 

Here are some quick steps to get you started segmenting your lists, but there is more info on our How to Do Everything site.

First, segment by Campaign recipients.

 

 

 

 

Then select the campaign or campaigns you want to use for the list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you can make some choices based on what information you want. You can select just openers, clickers or both. Remember, if you select only openers you could be missing those who read the text version and click on links. And if you select both, your list will be smaller, but very targeted.

A little extra effort for a small business yes, but spending a bit of time on your list now can bring great results for your business the rest of the year.

 

Posted by Jill Bastian.

Jill Bastian is the Training and Education Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter @Jillieb3.