advertising, Internet, Internet Marketing, Marketing

Three Common Mistakes When A/B Testing Emails

Written by eTargetMedia.

By now, you are likely aware of the need to perform A/B testing on your email campaigns. Making changes to your emails — whether major or subtle — can have a significant impact on your email’s effectiveness so it’s important to test potential changes and monitor their effectiveness. But in order to get the most out of your A/B testing you need to do it correctly.

Here are three common mistakes which eTargetMedia has found that even experienced digital marketers make when performing A/B testing on their emails:

Drawing Conclusions From Early Results: With email marketing, you can see the results of your A/B testing in real time as recipients open their emails and click through to your site. This is powerful information but it can also be misleading. People who open your emails right away are likely to respond differently than people who take their time. Wait at least 24 hours before doing any serious analysis of your results.

Testing One-Off Emails: If your company has a one-time Valentine’s Day sale, chances are you are going to send an email about it. But you aren’t going to learn a lot that will help your business long-term by testing the Valentine’s Day specific content in that email (such as the size and shape of a heart). Save your A/B testing for elements that can apply to all of your emails.

Altering Too Many Elements: It’s tempting to test multiple elements in one A/B email campaign. The problem is that this makes it impossible to determine which changes led to which results in your testing. You should only change one element at a time during your A/B testing.

eTargetMedia is a leading provider of targeted email and postal mailing lists. The company also provides creative services that can help businesses of all sizes with their digital marketing needs.

Marketing

How to Succeed at Content Marketing as a Small Business

If you want your content creation efforts to work, then you have to create a lot of content. Now if you can write a number of blog posts in a day, then it helps. Or else, this can turn out to be a big problem for you.

In fact, a number of small businesses struggle to create content which usually amounts to one blog post a month, a few social media updates or even the creation of a video too.

But it isn’t enough. The truth is that if you want results, then you have to create twice as much content in order for it to be effective. Apart from this, you have to spend twice as much time spent in creating it to promote it effectively.

This poses a problem yet again because most small businesses’ have small marketing departments and it would be an ordeal, amounting to almost 60 hours, to get things done.

Admittedly, even if they understand the importance of social media, blogging, email marketing and the like, there is an apprehensiveness since so much needs to be done.

There’s really only one solution: hire a writer.

This is for the simple reason that writers can take on the sole task of content creation while the others can do the planning, promotion and design work.

The business owner can come up with the bulk of the ideas while the writer can come up with a few small ones. Apart from this, an intern or a person who already maintains the website can handle content promotion while the graphic designer can manage the creation of visuals as a freelancer.

This is the key to being successful at content marketing!

Marketing, Web

4 Common Content Marketing Mistakes

While it’s all well and good that businesses are actively working on content marketing strategies, there are a number of mistakes that are usually made.

Checking for whether or not you are committing any mistakes can go a long way in bringing more profitability to the business for obvious reasons.

That said, here are 4 common content marketing mistakes that you might be making:

#1: No Strategy

Knowing your business goals and how content marketing can get you there is probably the most important thing to think about before investing resources. But that’s not all – determining what strategies you will spend time on to achieve these goals have to be clarified before doing anything else.

#2: No use of an Editorial Calendar

Without a doubt, content marketing takes years to build a following where consumers get into the habit of reading your content and sharing it in the process too. Even the smallest content marketing plan involves a number of moving parts – be it the coordination of a marketing manager, a designer and a writer. This is why it is absolutely necessary for you to have an editorial calendar.

#3: No Keyword Research

Search engine optimization and content marketing go hand-in-hand. It is imperative that you use a keyword research tool. In other words, with the help of finding the right keywords, you will create something that people actually want. One tool you can use is Inbound Writer.

#4: Not using multiple formats and platforms

Internet users aren’t interested in just words anymore. Infographics and tweets with pictures tend to get more shares than articles that contain words. In order to get used to this, it is important that you get used to creating videos. Never hesitate to add pictures either. Also, podcasts, animated GIFs and SlideShares are popular too.

Marketing

Basic Online Marketing Ideas for Makeup Artists

Written by Cosmix Inc.

Becoming a successful makeup artist requires hard work. It also requires the right online marketing techniques. Having a website is not enough to get you noticed online. If you’re new to online marketing, don’t worry. The professionals at Cosmix Inc. have come up with the following basic tips on how to market your business on the web.

Post your resume and credentials. Even the best bio doesn’t compare to facts, such as the school you attended, your experience, and the makeup training or courses you enrolled in. While it might seem intimidating to post your resume on the web, it’s a great way to establish trust with your clients. Potential customers appreciate honesty and will be impressed by your list of experience. Create a page designated for your resume, credentials, and experience.

Create an online portfolio. Perhaps the most powerful marketing tool is your portfolio, images of your best makeup jobs. Make sure that your website features clear, high-definition photographs of your best work. If you’re not proud of it, don’t post it online. You can also create before and after photos of your best work to date. This page can also feature testimonials from your clients.

Feature quality content. Good content attracts search engines and customers. Your website should be search-engine and consumer-friendly, which means you should use it to not only market your business but also educate your clients about makeup. Enrich your website with high-quality content about topics they will be interested in. Consider adding a blog that features basic how-to tutorials and posts on makeup tips.

Cosmix Inc. is one of the only fully licensed and accredited makeup and special effects makeup schools in the nation offering makeup artist classes in fashion, production, beauty, film and TV.    

Marketing

4 Content Curation Tools For Your Content Marketing Strategy

Although content curation is hardly discussed, it still is an important part of any content marketing strategy.

And while it is important, content curation shouldn’t be the only strategy used. Conversely, if a marketer only added content about their product, they would limit their audience.

That said, here are 4 content curation tools that you could use:

#1: Google Alerts

This is a free service that is designed to find just about anything that can be found using keywords. Google alerts will send you notifications as soon as it finds content that match your keywords.

#2: List.ly

This tool is often considered to be a secret weapon of a number of content marketers. It allows you to create, share and contribute to lists that both you and others might create. Quite interestingly, you also have a List.ly WordPress plugin that you can add this functionality to your blog.

#3: Paper.li

This tool will look for content that you specify but quite differently, will send a daily report to all your followers. You can pull up content from a number of sources such as Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube and even RSS feeds and choose to send a report whether daily or even once or twice a week.

#4: Scoop.it

This tool will help you use a bookmarklet that will add interesting content to your Scoop.it account. It will create a newsletter, much like the previous tool, and will send it out to your followers. You can schedule when these updates go out but that feature comes with a paid ‘Business’ plan.

Marketing

3 Tips to Improve the Open Rate For Your Email Marketing Program

Without a doubt, open rates determine the success of a email marketing program but can also be used to measure subscriber engagement too.

A number of studies have showed that an open rate of 10 to 15 percent is good for any email marketing program but anything below is definitely a cause for concern.

So, if your program is below that number, here are 3 tips to improve your open rates:

#1: Get the sender name and from email address right

On iOS devices, the sender name is far more prominent than the subject line. How recognizable your sender name and message is matters with email marketing experts, and is termed as ‘sender familiarity’. Also, make sure you keep the sender address the same as it will be more recognizable and professional too.

#2: Get the subject line right

Different people like different types of emails. Some people might prefer subject lines with flash or monthly sales while others might want information pertaining to current events or holidays. Yet another group might want subjects lines with number or special characters in them. It’s up to you to do some split testing.

#3: Send at the right time

One of the factors that determine open rates is the time at which they are sent or even the day of the week. In fact, you can test this using some data that is available from industry reports. Doing so will ensure that you increase your open rates substantially.

Marketing

Makeup Artistry Marketing

Guest post is submitted by Cosmix Inc., a leading makeup artistry school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  Cosmix offers makeup courses in special effects and airbrushing, as well as many other techniques.  Browse their website for more information.

Makeup artist schools today emphasize how critical marketing is in makeup artistry.  While it’s true that word of mouth referrals are incredibly important in the makeup industry, there is also a lot of potential to grow one’s business through the right marketing.

The first key of marketing and branding oneself in makeup artistry is to realize that makeup artists are walking business cards.  Essentially, your appearance and conduct while both in and outside of the workplace, can either increase or decrease your success in makeup artistry.  While working a gig, it’s critical to maintain a professional appearance.

One important element of marketing is utilizing the proper materials.  It’s essential to have business cards that emphasize your level of makeup training and education as well as the amount of experience that you have.  Business cards are one of the most important tools for networking and can help you to book freelance work.  No makeup artist should leave their home without their business cards!

Business cards can make a lasting impression. Today you can easily buy reasonable business cards from websites such as www.zazzles or http://www.vistaprint.com.  It’s best to invest in higher quality cards than the “free” cards that you can easily get from these websites.     Your business card should be very simple and easy to read.  It should contain your name, title, phone number, email address, and your web address.