Smarter Email Marketing – Reboot Your B2B Lead Generation and Grow Your Business

‘m sure you’ve heard the discussions about the imminent decline of email and the rise of social media. But independent marketing studies suggest that’s just not the case. Let’s see what the data tells us.

· 2012 ExactTarget Survey – 66% prefer email as the #1 marketing communication channel.

· 2012 EmailVision Study – 89.2% of marketing managers say email remains as important or more important to their overall marketing strategy compared with two years ago.

· A Merkle Study – 74% of online adults prefer to receive corporate communica­tions via email instead of social media, direct mail, text messaging, or phone.

In reality, the outlook for email marketing – with a twist – is stronger and more popular than ever. Integration is the twist. In a Strong Mail Marketing Trends Survey, 68% of business leaders intend to integrate email marketing with social media. And the marketing spend for email marketing (60%) and social media (55%), shows business leaders intend to pursue an integrated approach.

The New Email Marketing Strategy

Employing email by integrating it with social media, search, and content marketing results in smarter email marketing. Because email covers all parts of the buying cycle and champions permission marketing, it’s powerful and effective. With its opt-in feature, emails go to a target audience willing to receive them. On its own, email encourages interactivity. But combined with social media, search and content marketing, email marketing optimizes results.

Integrating Email Marketing with Social Media

Social media connect prospects, customers, and businesses. Once that’s done, relationships develop offline via email or phone. Email remains the preferred method because it’s fast, effective and efficient. With integration, both channels reinforce each other as social media informs email marketing. Respond to prospects’ questions on social media sites in a personal, engaging and focused way. This deepens and broadens your social network. And it nurtures your brand. Include links in your email to your social media sites to increase your followers. Also, gently suggest customers refer your business by sharing your email. Integrating email with social media improves effectiveness more than when employing each channel independently.

Integrating Email Marketing with Search

The superiority of email lies in its ability to address every part of the buying cycle. And it embraces permission marketing, which has replaced interruption marketing. Integration with search gives you several benefits. Newsletters or eZines are an excellent way to extend reach and build awareness. Adding relevant keywords to your emails increases prospects’ likelihood of finding your newsletters. You can also drive more prospects from search engines to your website by posting newsletters to your site. Keyword-rich emails also help increase the chances of your emails going viral. Combining email with search provides customers with marketing they want. As Jay Baer would say, email has “Youtility”. This helps improve your leads and grow your business.

Integrating Email Marketing with Content Marketing

This one’s a no-brainer. You can use email as content, as a content delivery tool and as a way to drive conversions. Let’s take email as content first. Don’t write about your products and services. Instead, focus on solving customer problems or discuss ground-breaking industry news and trends that affect your clients. Email builds trust by publishing relevant information. Email also serves as an effective delivery tool. You can attach value-added content like product brochures, case studies, and videos. Finally, email can drive prospects and clients to landing pages. This enhances conversions. Integrating email with content makes it easier for prospects and clients to access, digest and act on information you published.

Email Marketing Outlook

Due to the exploding growth of mobile devices, email marketing may reach a tipping point by 2015. Today, email has many benefits, but its future lies in integrating with other marketing channels. As business leaders purse the integration of email marketing with other channels suggests email is here to stay. Clearly, your competitors think so – judging by where they’re spending their money.

Questions for the Savvy Marketer

Does your marketing plan take a holistic approach? Are you integrating email best practices into your marketing efforts? Are you increasing your leads and growing your business as effectively as you could? If you don’t have a limitless budget, consider integrating smarter email marketing with your other marketing channels. If your lead generation needs a reboot, email might be a good place to start

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The Death of Product Review Ezine Publishing

Product Review Email newsletters as you know them are on death row.

There’s a new breed of Ezines; a new generation of subscriber reviews and ratings driven content ezines. No longer driven by publishers reviews of what products or services are hot based on what is most profitable for publishers. I call them “web 2.0 Ezines” following the web 2.0 sites phenomena.

These are ezines that is respected and trusted to help it’s subscribers decide what they want to buy based on very intricate systems of rating, social media and voting systems without the undue doubtful self-serving editorial reviews of publishers.

Subscribers to a web 2.0 ezine buy what they want based on trusted and relevant opinion of real users product and service reviews and ratings rather than what the editor’s reviews or hyped testimonials says.

These are a new breed of ezines that allow it’s ezine subscriber to post a review about a product or service they have purchased and used to be included as content for the ezine.

Whether you subscribe to the ezine, just to get inside product ratings and reviews by real users or contribute by way of your own real life reviews. You will find that real Users in web 2.0 ezines give you the most relevant and updated ratings and advice on a particular product or service in that market BEFORE you spend your hard earned money..

This is having tremendous significance for Ezine publishers in every niche. You see these ezines are managed by not just the publishers. The publishers empower subscribers of the ezine to post reviews to be used as editorial content in the ezine. Ratingshub Internet marketing review ezine is the latest web 2.0 ezine introduced in the internet marketing community.

The result of allowing ezine subscribers to post relevant respected and trusted user ratings and reviews as ezine content is proving to be very effective for subscribers to have the ability to access an ezine of trustworthy credible product or services facts, ideas and advice to use in their decision making.

Why?

Well, such ezines create a platform where the subscribers refer to real user product or service ratings, reviews and advice. And then based on how helpful the subscribers find it, the ezine content would determine how effective the sales promotional links would be clicked by subscribers interested in that service or product.

Product and service users are taking ezine editorial power into their own hands; They are practically co- editors of the “web 2.0″ ezine by adding their own ratings, reviews and advice about products and services they have bought as relevant ezine content. These are that are trust and respect these ezines with their ratings, reviews and responses to products and services being offered in the market. They encourage or promote only products or services that are highly rated by real users to help prospective buyers.

These web 2.0 ezines are a platform for shared values, ratings, reviews, ideas and advice which are trusted more than a sales pitch or publishers own review of a product or service.

When ezine subscribers (through reviews) make the effort to tell other subscribers that they like or don’t like something about a product they bought, it means that it is important to every subscriber. After all, it’s true and helpful to those considering buying that product.

Users leave both positive and negative comments about products and then others read them, comment on them in turn…but most importantly provide honest advice subscribers to make buying decisions as they consult the ezine content.

Today’s information communication technology has changed the way subscribers are advising each other, influencing publishers and the editorial opinion in a BIG way. It is no longer enough for subscribers to take a “passive” approach to dealing with publishers or editors. Instead today’s subscribers are more willing to advise and trust each others collective product and service ratings and reviews …when faced with a buying decision.
The web 2.0 ezine …

o Gives product or services user control over editorial content; ratings, reviews, ideas and advice generation that is viewable by ezine subscribers to use.

o Subscribers trust real life product or service users as co-editors of the ezine.

o Responds to subscribers basic need for trust and credibility in order to make buying decisions.

The web 2.0 ezine is driven by a set of shared social values of respect and

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