5 Reasons to Use an Email Service Provider (ESP)
Posted by Michael Herman
Email marketing has been around for over ten years now, but with all the changing technology available, there are many new techniques and strategies you can apply to email in order to achieve an even higher ROI and conversion rate than was attainable in the past! In fact, one of the MOST important things you can do for your email marketing campaign is to invest in an ESP, or email marketing service provider. Even if your email list is small, start out with a reliable ESP so once your list grows to a few hundred or more recipients, you'll have the technology already in place to automatically handle subscribes, bounces, and deliverability issues!
Here are a quick list of reasons you should be using an ESP instead of a regular email client such as Outlook.
1. List Management: Make it easy for yourself and others to subscribe to your list! With ESP's you can automatically have new contacts added through your website, Facebook page, and more! As you are growing your list quickly, this will be very helpful!
2. High Deliverability: Your email client is not meant to sent out bulk emails to contacts and your messages may end up labeled as spam by ISPs, not even arriving into your recipients' spam folders, much less their inboxes. ESPs are approved by ISPd as a legitimate, CAN SPAM compliant, permission-based email delivery service.
3. Ability to Create and Send HTML Messages: Most ESPs include several well-designed HTML templates for you to customize and use for your email campaigns. Save these templates to use over and over again so all of your messages are consistent!
4. Segmented Lists and Personalization Features: Target those individuals on your list with messages that are most relevant to them. This increases your click-thru and conversion rates - therefore increasing your ROI! With ESPs you can easily insert your recipients' name, company name, past purchase history and other information directly into the message or subject line!
5. Automatic CAN SPAM Compliance: ESPs make CAN SPAM compliance easy by automatically inserting your physical address and unsubscribe information in the footer of the email, as well as automatically removing unsubscribes immediately so that you are in compliance with the 10 day rule!
There are so many other features that make an ESP your top choice for your email marketing! Give us a call and we can review more with you!
20 Tips to Get Your Content Seen on Facebook
Posted by Michael Herman
I recently attended the Social Fresh conference in Tampa, FL and had the opportunity to hear some mind-blowing speakers. One of them was Ellie Mirman from HubSpot. She provided 20 tips on getting your content seen on Facebook. It isn't as easy as it sounds, but check out these great tips!
What is "News Feed Optimization"?
The news feed is the #1 most visible real estate on Facebook. It is customized to each user based on their network and their patterns of activity, like which of their friends they interact with the most. The news feed shows the top posts from a user's network, filtering out more than 99% of content. So, the question is, how do you make sure your content makes it into that <1% of content securing real estate in the news feed?
Facebook's Algorithm: EdgeRank
Facebook, unlike the super-secret Google, has shared their algorithm for ranking content on Facebook and filtering what appears in the news feed. The algorithm consists of three components:
1. Affinity - the number of times 2 people (or a person and a page) have interacted
2. Weight - the number of times users have interacted (commented, liked) with the content in question
3. Recency - the time since the content was posted, note that Facebook moves and changes very quickly, and my news feed, for example, never has content more than 24 hours old.
20 Tips to Get Your Content Seen on Facebook
With the understanding of how Facebook ranks and filters content, what can you do to make sure your content makes the cut? Here are 20 ideas.
- Post a variety of content to attract interactions from a higher percentage of your users, raising your affinity score.
- Focus on positive and fun content on Facebook. Sex sells.*
- Talk about Facebook - Facebook is the number one most shareable topic on Facebook.*
- Respond to comments that your fans post on your content to increase the number of interactions per post.
- Respond to comments that your fans post on your wall to increase your affinity score.
- Experiment with targeting posts to get a higher feedback score (percentage of impressions that turn into interactions).
- Post regularly, but not too frequently (more than once a day) to give each post a good chance of gaining traction.*
- Post content outside of main work hours - Facebook users interact more when they're off the clock.*
- Include images on blog posts you publish to create a more eye-catching post.
- Don't forget to write an appealing meta description for any links you post, because Facebook automatically pulls this in for links.
- Use share links on your blog articles and landing pages to encourage users to post your content directly.
- Integrate landing pages within Facebook to get higher conversion rates - Facebookers don't like to leave Facebook.
- Post videos directly instead of links to articles with videos, so users can watch the video within Facebook.
- Include links in video descriptions to drive traffic back to your website.
- To share photos but protect your copyright and get better analytics, use Flickr integrated with your Facebook account.
- To share photos for maximum interactions, post photos directly to Facebook.
- Refrain from using complex language or jargon in your posts for maximum response.*
- Ask questions and specifically ask for feedback from your fans.
- Use Facebook Insights to measure which content performs the best on your specific page.
- Encourage user-generated content, including user-created photos, comments, or links.
See Ellie's slides from Social Fresh: http://www.hubspot.com/social-fresh-tampa/
Where Online Advertising is Headed…
Posted by Patrick Lynch
I am sure you have seen/used the social sign-in feature on many things lately. Whether it is an app or a website, you are often given the option to sign-in via Facebook or Twitter. Using technologies like Facebook Connect and OAuth are helping to redefine the concept of permission marketing. Instead of just opting in on an email, you are building a permission based relationship with your consumers on your site. This also allows sites to be transparent to the audience, informing the consumer how their data will be used and how it can help the company and the consumer.
There is a new generation that is comfortable using mobile apps and are quite willing to divulge personal information with companies and brands in exchange for valued relationship. This type of authorization-based relationship between brand and user is likely to become the norm.
And rightly so, instead of filling out forms showing your interests/age/location the consumer only has to connect via Facebook and instantly give the brand all of that data with just one click. 
Digital Street Featured in Nike Women Video
Posted by Michael Herman
Stephanie, our Director of Social Media, was one of 20 women chosen to participate in the Nike Women Make Yourself Movement. As her first assignment, she was asked to post a blog on "What Makes Me" - and with typical "Stephanie fashion", she chose to do a video instead! Check it out below! More videos will be coming, so be sure to check out the Nike Women Facebook page as well as our own!
Four Simple Ways to Collect Email Addresses
Posted by Michael Herman
The bottom line is that people are not as willing to give out their email addresses as they used to be. So, businesses now have to think of easy and creative ways to collect emails while providing incentive to sign up.
1. Set out an Email Signup Sheet – All you need is pen and paper. It may seem a little old school with all the technology we have these days, but people will appreciate that they can sign up quickly and easily without all the hassle of getting online. Simply place a sign-up sheet at the check-out counter or main desk at your place of business and make sure it is visible for everyone to see. When customers check out, you can tell them about the special deals and updates they’ll receive by signing up.
2. Bucket O’ Business Cards - Not only do people love deals, but they love EXCLUSIVE deals that not everyone else gets. Put out a fish bowl, bucket, or basket at the main counter of your place of business and have some sort of an incentive for why someone would want to give your business their business card. For example, if you own a coffee shop, let your customers know that once a month you will draw a business card from the bucket, and the lucky winner will receive free coffee for a week! This leads to you getting a lot of business cards and customers becoming very excited for the chance to win your special deal.
3. Employee Walk-up- Creating communication between businesses and customers is key to building consumers trust. Businesses that strive for great customer service have the highest potential for success. While employees engage with customers, why not have them mention the great deals and updates they will receive by signing up for your emails? People trust people.
4. Set up a Webform- I know it sounds complicated, but it’s actually a really easy and almost effortless way to get people to sign up for emails. A webform goes on a webpage, such as your website or Facebook. It allows people to enter in information, such as their name, email address, and birth date. When people sign up, their information automatically goes into your Digital Street contact list.
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