Archive for James Trumbly

How To Achieve Social Media Stardom

Posted by James Trumbly on March 5th, 2013 at 8:00 am

Certain businesses have become overnight starlets in the world of social media. Somehow, things just clicked right from the start, and they “get it.” As it turns out, these social media divas all have some essential practices in common. With just a little effort, you too can enter the social media stratosphere.

Don’t be afraid to ask for fans.
Let your email subscribers know about your social media efforts by including “Follow Us” buttons in each message you send, including customer service messages. You can also create a special campaign to request followers. Templates are free and easy to integrate into your newsletter format.

Incentivize subscriptions.
One-time incentives such as a coupon or discount for liking a Facebook page can be excellent tools to acquire likes. You can also tempt would-be followers with promises of regular Twitter-only specials, sale previews, or VIP access to sales events.

Integrate your promotion efforts.
Email marketing is a great way to spread the word about your social media efforts, but don’t ignore other promotion opportunities. Include a link on your website, solicit followers in your print advertisements, and pin your emails to your Pinterest board with keyword-enriched descriptions so your business shows up in a search.

Encourage your fans to interact.
Engagement... Read more

Facebook vs. LinkedIn for B2B Marketing

Posted by James Trumbly on February 27th, 2013 at 8:00 am

LinkedIn is the go-to website for most B2B marketers when it comes to networking and expanding their client base. But is it really the best place to get the job done? According to some studies, Facebook offers just as much if not more opportunity to reach your professional audience. Let’s take a look at how the two sites stack up side by side.
Facebook Pros and Cons
The social media giant clearly leads the field in terms of B2C marketing. But how about that professional audience you’re trying to reach?

Pro: Facebook’s huge user base means that more professionals are on Facebook than on LinkedIn in terms of total numbers. Those professionals don’t turn off their business acumen when they’re on Facebook, so you can still market effectively through the broader platform.
Pro: Facebook allows direct marketing through Facebook ads, meaning you’re no longer dependent on buyer engagement in order to reach potential customers.
Con: Facebook posts may or may not appear on your fans’ walls, depending on their level of engagement with your brand.
Con: Marketing efforts must compete with non-professional posts. Music videos, cute puppies, and pithy quotes are all clamoring for the attention of your potential buyers. Your posts have to be good enough... Read more

Building your business with lead nurturing

Posted by James Trumbly on February 13th, 2013 at 10:20 am

In nature, “nurturing” always implies a particular relationship between the nurturer and the nuturee: the party with more knowledge/experience/information/power shares those qualities with the party possessing less, with the goal of bringing about positive change. Appropriately, “lead nurturing” in the email marketing world refers to the educational relationship you create with subscribers, with the goal of persuading them to act. When you get it right, you’ll not only get more customers to say yes, you’ll also build a core of loyal clients who throw their business your way again and again.
Basics of Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing isn’t just sending emails once a week. It involves providing relevant, useful information to the subscriber about the offer you want him to accept. And it requires planning.

Create a target audience persona. Your email list includes a variety of personality and customer types, but in order to create the most effective email campaign, you’ll need to choose one target persona to focus on. Create each email with that personality in mind. What motivates them? What information do they need? What questions do they want answered? Focus on building a relationship with your target audience in order to earn their loyalty.
Determine a consistent email frequency and sequence.... Read more

Does your business really need Google+?

Posted by James Trumbly on February 5th, 2013 at 8:00 am

Twitter and Facebook have been well-established as the twin pillars of social media for what amounts to eons in the rapidly evolving technological world. Now, after an epic Google Buzz fail, Google has launched their newest attempt to run with the big dogs:Google+. The questions being asked by many businesses include “Do I really need a third networking site? Will it be a good investment in the long term? Does anybody actually use Google+?” Let’s address these questions one at a time.
Do I Really Need a Third Networking Site?
“Need” is a relevant term, but Google+ does offer some unique features that Facebook and Twitter don’t:

Circles—Circles allow you to categorize all your contacts into groups. You can share posts with all your contacts or you can cater your content to those within a particular circle.
Hangouts—Hangouts are like video chat on steroids. They allow you to chat with up to nine other Google+ users, even those who aren’t currently connected to you (a great feature for brand exposure). Hangouts are ideal for webinars, group discussions, and question/answer sessions.
Google Indexing Benefits—Google is the search engine king, and you can bet they will integrate Google+ into their indexing algorithms. For the best exposure,... Read more

How to overcome tunnel vision in email design

Posted by James Trumbly on January 31st, 2013 at 10:16 am

How long do you have to snag your reader’s attention before you lose them? Say it with me: ten seconds or less. We’ve had this drilled into our heads, and great designers know what keeps people reading and what doesn’t. But what hasn’t been learned nearly so well is that your customer’s online attention is not only short, but also very narrow.
Usability guru, Jack Nielson, explains in a recent Alertbox Column that most users focus only on what interests them or what they expect will give them the answers that they need while ignoring the other content. Known as “Tunnel Vision,” this phenomenon can make the difference between click-throughs and deleted messages.
Let’s consider an example. You design a newsletter advertising your website’s 20 percent off sale. You include a headline, an image, a block of text that includes a coupon code, and a call to action that says “Shop Now.” Nielson’s usability research suggests that if you haven’t stated the coupon code in the headline or included it as part of the call to action, many subscribers won’t see it. It’s a phenomenon similar to banner blindness, where readers ignore portions of the screen that they think aren’t essential to the overall... Read more