The Effect of Images on Your Brand

In the past, marketing through social media was all about content. Of course, it is still about content; however, it is also about images which truly serve to enhance the concepts of whatever you are sharing with your audience.

Affecting a balance
There are many social media channels (and they are becoming more and more popular) that are completely based on images. The list includes Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Of course, the other popular social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) have image capability and in those cases, it is very simple to combine effective words with effective images. Many people have begun to realize that they need to take their business to the next level and make the images one of the focal points of their message. This works very effectively because many audience members are visual and the images appeal to them a great deal.

How to effectively use images in branding
There are several different ways in which you can incorporate images into your branding to yield positive results. First of all, you need to make sure that whichever images you choose to accompany your content, that people will be able to share them easily. As you are in the selection phase of the images, you will want to choose the images that you feel will touch your audience emotionally in the most profound manner. As you are probably aware, human beings react with their feelings. If you manage to get through to them emotionally, they will respond in a way that you can work with and so that you can start to form a relationship. As you are working on selecting images, it is a really good idea to look closely at your content to figure out which types of audience members you are trying to reach. Your images will be connected to that concept. Once you have been able to identify that, it will be much easier for you. It may also be helpful for you to analyze your metrics to determine what appeals most to your audience so that you have a solid direction in which to go.

Watch carefully
Paying close attention to your online results is extremely helpful and will really take you very far. However, it is important for you to recognize that this may be challenging when it comes to images. Most analytics tools pay attention to keywords, not images. There are companies, however, that monitor the metrics for images and it will probably be well worth your while to use one or more of them. All feedback is essential for your business's success. You may find that, at times, you learn more from negative feedback than positive feedback. In any case, you cannot afford to ignore the negative just because it doesn't make you feel good. If you can get past the emotional reaction and really listen to what the feedback is trying to say, you will do well.

Gather ambassadors
One of the best ways to spread the word and elicit positive feedback is by getting other people to sing your business's praises. In fact, other people are the only ones who can do that for you. You will never be able to do it yourself because your word will not come with the same credibility. However, it is completely appropriate for you to encourage other people to praise what you are doing on your behalf. On the other hand, if someone else has taken your images and has altered them for a negative effect, they are infringing on your copyright and you are completely justified in fixing the situation to the best of your ability.

Conclusion
It is still true that "Content is King"; however, images will take your content and make it even better and even more effective. It is extremely important for you, as a business owner, to understand the power that images can have for your business and make sure that you leverage them for all they are worth. You will start to see results and you will not remember a time when you didn't have them as a part of your brand. Because many people are visual, it is an excellent idea to use your images as a familiar trademark for your brand, including familiar figures and colors in the images. People will remember them and associate them with your business. Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7926384

Timing Is Everything in Email Marketing

Email marketing is a viable and profitable way to create traffic to your website. The components needed in an effective email campaign include quality content, a call to action, and timing your email so that people will actually open them, read them, and then act. You may not have given much thought to timing except how many days of the week you send out your emails, but did you know the day of the week and the time of day greatly affect click through rates? The three core components of email marketing; targeting the right audience, sending the right message, and sending the email out at the right time combine to create an effective and profitable email marketing campaign.

MECLAB Research Partners conducted an experiment to test email marketing when the best time to send out emails would be. The goal was to see if the day of the week and time of day had any bearing on email marketing, and when emails were being opened and acted upon. What they found was Sunday was the best day of the week to send out emails, and the best time of the day was late afternoon/early evening. Fourteen emails were sent each day, and when they were opened was tracked. Here are the results of their experiment with email marketing:

Monday: 1 email opened in the morning, and 2 opened in the afternoon.

Tuesday: 3 emails opened in the morning, and 4 opened in the afternoon.

Wednesday: 5 emails opened in the morning, and 6 in the afternoon.

Thursday: 7 emails opened in the morning, and 8 in the afternoon.

Friday: 9 emails opened in the morning, and 10 in the afternoon.

Saturday: 11 emails opened in the morning, and 12 opened in the afternoon.

Sunday: 13 emails opened in the morning, and 14 in the afternoon.

As you can see by the data collected, emails sent later in the week and later in the day have a better chance of being opened and acted upon. Researchers thought this was because in the late afternoon people had the habit of checking and answering their emails. Weekends seemed to be best because people had more time to follow through on a call to action included in email marketing campaigns.

So what does this mean to you the business owner? Should you only send out emails late in the week and late in the day? Well no, you should still include early in the week and morning emails in your email marketing plan. But you might want to save your really juicy call to action emails for the prime time.

When implementing your email marketing campaign, use the emails early in the week and early in the day to be more informative. Draw people's interest in, and then when it is time to send out emails later in the week you can zero in on the call to action. This will help increase your click through rates and get people to take advantage of what you have to offer.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7511965

Top 14 Benefits of Social Media Marketing for You and Your Business

There's a lot of fuss surrounding social media these days. If you still haven't jumped on the bandwagon and aren't sure why so many people are making such a big deal about it, here are 14 benefits of social media for your business and you from Success magazine.

For Business:

Establish a brand and raise awareness. Since the majority of the population is already visiting social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, getting your brand name all over those networks can help let people know that you're around. If you have yet to create a company image online, social networks are the place to do it. Create a fun YouTube video that entertains and informs. Funny videos tend to make their way around the Internet a lot faster than any other kind, so when making a video, keep in mind that you want it to be interesting enough for your target audience to want to share. Using Facebook and Twitter to create a fun online community that your customers will want to visit will increase brand loyalty and drive traffic to your Website, allowing you the chance to make more online sales.

Spy on the competition. Follow your competitors on Twitter and Facebook and you’ll be able to see what they have up their sleeve. Just make sure to offer a better deal than whatever they have going on.

Pitch products in a more human, interactive way. Since people visit social media sites to get personal rather than be bombarded with ads, discuss your business in a fun way and engage your customers with questions. Ask their opinions and entice them to respond back. This way you’re making a valuable connection that will help increase your number of return customers.

Bring attention to your products. Featuring a product on a social media site is one of the fastest ways to bring attention to it. Offer a promotion along with it for your online community members and watch your sales skyrocket.

Increase customer loyalty and trust. Speaking to your customers in a personal way will make them feel like their talking to a friend, not a company. This will help increase their trust in you, which will make them do business with you rather than your competition. It will also increase the chances of customer recommendations.

Listen to your customer's opinion. Social media sites are an awesome way to see what your target audience is saying about your company or your products. Take their constructive criticism and use it to enhance your product to better meet their needs.

Conduct market research. Listen to what your customers say about your products and track what links they click on and you'll begin to see what your customers like and respond to. People love to express their opinions on social media sites, which will allow you to hear the truth. Then you can use your new-found information to tweak your product or service to please them as well as continue to post more information and links that they will enjoy.

Increase customer service. Social media networks allow your company to answer your customers' questions and concerns directly in a timely manner. This will improve customer satisfaction and also save you money on long distance customer service phone calls.

For You:

Build your personal reputation. Social networks allow you to get your name out to the world and talk about things that matter to you. This will help you build a good online reputation, which is critical nowadays if you're looking for a job or even a new business contact.

Display your resume. LinkedIn allows you to display your full resume online for any future employers or recruiters to see. This will help bring you new opportunities that never would have existed otherwise.

Find a job. Jobs are posted every minute on social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter along with the links or information you need to apply for them.

Showcase your talents and establish yourself as an expert. If you're passionate about a certain subject, whether it's work-related or a hobby, the Internet is a great place to show off your knowledge. Soon people will be coming to you for the breaking information on that topic, and talking about you to friends.

Increase your business contacts and enhance personal relationships. Through professional sites like LinkedIn, you can build your number of business contacts and enhance your reputation as an expert in your industry. You can also connect with those long-lost high school and college classmates, old colleagues, and out-of-town family members.

Share information with like-minded people. Connect with other professionals in your field to share information. Where else would you be able to connect with industry professionals across the globe to swap stories and advice?

Facebook Introduces Mobile Ad Unit to Promote Apps

Just a few weeks after introducing its first mobile ad unit, Facebook has launched another one, this time designed to help mobile app developers market themselves.

Facebook is testing the new unit with a “limited set of beta partners” Vijaye Raji, a software engineer at the company, wrote on Facebook’s blog on Tuesday. The units drive users to new apps. If a user clicks on an ad and they don’t have the app already, they’ll be directed to the App Store or Google Play to download it.

The unit is automated; to buy an ad you merely have to fill out an online form and delineate which demo you’re trying to reach and what your budget is. Once you buy a unit, you can use Facebook’s analytics tools to assess its performance.

As Raji notes, there is clearly an audience for such a unit: In the past 30 days, Facebook has sent customers to the Apple App Store and Google Play 146 million times.

The introduction comes after Facebook introduced Sponsored Stories for the News Feed in June. A few independent studies have deemed the ads more effective than traditional desktop ads. Despite such success, investors appear skeptical of Facebook’s odds of maintaining its revenues via mobile ads.

3 Game Changers in Online Marketing

Times are changing for web marketers, particularly those dealing with online retail marketing. Customers are getting harder and more expensive to attract and retain, and new technologies are emerging at breakneck speed.

There are a lot of tools that promise to help, but the better approach may be to focus on the following three areas that every marketer needs to address if they want to succeed online.

1. Speed

Many websites are still under performing when it comes to speed, and there’s a measurable financial cost associated to this. Every second added to a website’s load decreases conversions by a massive 2% to 7% and reduces page views by 1% to 2%. Just as importantly, Google makes no secret of the fact that speed is part of its ranking process, meaning that a slow loading site is going to suffer in search results.

A fast website is, therefore, the first thing you need to ensure if you’re going to win in the increasingly competitive online retail world. There are basic, technical things you can do. For example, ensure your site is technically optimized.Also, check out your hosting and bandwidth providers and make sure that you’re not unnecessarily forcing users to download massive videos or images.

Another route to faster site speeds that’s being adopted by major players in web retail is the tag management system. Website tags are used by third-party technologies to track and control activity on a page. Many sites can have twenty or even thirty different tags per page, and each one of these will slow down a page’s loading speed. A tag management system can manage this process, speed up your site, and improve performance.

That said, speed isn’t just about the rate at which your pages load. The best companies are constantly evaluating and rolling out new approaches. To succeed, your marketing team needs to be working with your technical team to ensure that you can move quickly and make the most of the technologies and approaches that exist.

2. Customer View

Online shopping behavior is becoming more complex. Three quarters of customers use more than two points of contact to make a purchase, whether that is multiple visits to a single site or using different online and offline access methods. As a result, 25% of sales cycles take more than a month to complete from consideration to purchase.

During these extended purchase processes, there are hundreds of different influences, offers, social messaging, and other touch points that can influence a consumer decision. A user might visit your website initially, but then they might friend your Facebook page, see a display ad, visit through a search link, or head into your physical store. Retailers need to stay on top of this journey throughout its life cycle. You need to know what led to a customer buying something from your site and, more importantly, what led to them not buying.

The answer is to take a customer-centric view of your analytics, rather than a web-centric view. Traditionally, analyzing website traffic has been all about tracking individual visits to your website, but instead you need to think more broadly about what customers are doing that leads into their on-site experience.

Amazon does a great job of this, using all the information they have on you to ensure that their recommendations are almost always spot on. Similarly, Apple does a great job of integrating the in-store and online experience. They’ve taken the pain away from in-store lines with their remote iPhone-style checkouts. Would you like them to email you your receipt? Of course! And in doing so, you’ve just handed them valuable information about your purchase that they can use on their website.

3. Personalization

Once you have a distinct understanding of your customer the next step is to see how you can personalize their experience. Personalization isn’t the same as recommendation. It’s not saying ‘you bought that so you might like this.’ It’s about building an online experience that’s truly personal and unique.

Imagine a store owner who knows you by your name, your size, your preferences, and hang ups. Imagine if you’re hesitating to buy a pricey shirt and they offer you quality reassurance or even a special offer if you’re about to walk away? What about if they can help you curate an outfit or even try it on? What if the store layout was adapted to your liking? What if you always walked into the Hugo Boss section? (Assuming that’s your cup of tea?).

This is personalization: The combination of bespoke design, layout, stock, and messaging. Some websites out there are starting to do this, but only a few so far. However, many websites still work on a site-wide change basis, changing everything for everyone. Research by Jim Manzi , has shown that only 10% of site-wide changes actually drive business change. True personalization relies on being able to serve the right content to the right segment at a specific time, nearly guaranteeing that your changes are going to drive results.

Of course, personalization isn’t a simple process, and it requires what could be the fourth game changer: automation. If you’re going to personalize for individual users effectively without killing your backstage team then you need to be able to customize on the fly based on the data you hold.