Tag Archives: social-media

How To Use Email Marketing To Create And Grow Customer Relationships

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Hosting

The post How To Use Email Marketing To Create And Grow Customer Relationships appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . When you’re a small business, you have one distinct advantage over the big guys: customer relationships. Every time you’re talking with a customer in-store, emailing someone who has a question, or answering the phone, you’re building a relationship. It’s almost impossible for bigger companies to establish the same connection with customers (that’s why those that do really stand out).   Want The Really Good News? It’s never been easier to grow the relationships that are so crucial to your business’s success. Email marketing is a cost-effective solution that gives you the power to reach customers in a place most people visit every day — their inbox. Email makes it easy to build customer relationships because you’re able to stay top-of-mind and build trust and loyalty with the people who matter most to your business. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that 66 percent of consumers have made a purchase as a result of an email marketing message ( Direct Marketing Association , 2013). Or that email is almost 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping your business acquire new customers ( McKinsey , 2014). With a little bit of planning, you can use email to deliver the right message, to the right people, at the right time. This will help turn new visitors into loyal customers, and turn new customers into loyal advocates for your business. Follow this 3 step plan for building long-lasting customer relationships with email marketing. Ask for permission Before you add a name to your contact list, ask the customer for permission. When you ask permission, you’re able to build a list of people who are interested in your business and are excited to hear from you. They’re more likely to open your email, less likely to mark it as spam, and will stay with you longer than contacts that are added without consent. Permission-based email marketing is the best route to developing long-lasting customer relationships that can drive repeat sales and valuable word-of-mouth for your business. These practices also keep you in compliance with legislation like the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). Treat your email contacts with care Chances are you already provide a great experience for your customers when you’re face-to-face. Let email marketing extend that experience. When someone takes that step to subscribe, they’re saying, “I’d like to get to know you better.” They’ve invited you into their inbox. You don’t want to abuse that relationship by constantly promoting your products and services. Instead of making your newsletter all about you, think about how you can offer your subscribers something of value. Whether you choose to send them useful information or a special offer, having their interests in mind will show you care. Create a compelling newsletter You want to create a newsletter with content your subscribers aren’t going to get anywhere else. What this information is depends entirely on your industry, your company goals, and what will move your readers to action. Think about what your readers will find interesting, useful, or otherwise entertaining. Stuff that could stand on its own even if you had nothing to promote. Encourage subscribers to connect with you beyond your newsletter by linking off to a recent blog post, a useful video, or a social media channel that your business is active on.   Don’t Underestimate The Power Of Email Marketing Relationships Email marketing allows you to control the message, when it goes out, and who receives it. Subscribers have actively made a decision to give you permission to contact them, which means they’re interested in what you’re offering. You’re able to build stronger relationships with your audience — and people do business with or help people they know, like, and trust. Put these tips to work! Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or a small business owner with little marketing experience, Constant Contact has the easy-to-use tools, KnowHow, and coaches to get you started with email marketing. Best of all you can try it free for 60 days. web hosting Continue reading →

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How To Build A Content Strategy That Actually Works

Posted on June 17, 2015 by Hosting

The post How To Build A Content Strategy That Actually Works appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Building a content strategy that actually drives traffic to your website doesn’t have to take months to get right. By being strategic about your choices and following some of the advice below you’ll be able to build a custom content strategy geared towards your unique business goals. Simply creating content is no longer enough; you need to engineer a strategy that focuses on generating organic traffic through providing continuous value. The steps below will get you going in the right direction.   Nail Down Your Personas The only way to create content geared towards your ideal user is to know exactly to whom you’re writing. This information will help you to create a unique persona that resembles an actual person. These personas aren’t real people, but instead characters that resemble an ideal “perfect customer.” This will help you get in the head of your customer and speak to them and their unique needs. Common traits you’ll want to nail down include both demographic and psychographic information.   Know Your Search Terms By doing proper keyword research you’ll be able to see what your users are actually looking for. You can couple this data with your buyer persona and create content that truly makes an impact. To get started follow the basic steps outlined below: Make a basic long-tail keyword list: this list includes keywords that you think your users will be looking for, based upon having initial knowledge of your market and your product. Compare this list to actual data: compare this list to actual search data obtained from Google Keyword Tool, or a similar tool. Create headlines based upon these ideas: cross-reference your initial keywords with the terms with decent search volume and brainstorm topic ideas with this information.   Get The Style Of Content Right A lot of companies use different styles of content to reach different portions of their market. This includes things like, video, blog posts, slideshows, infographics, social media posts, webinars, and even email marketing campaigns. To find out what’s right for your audience use the buyer persona you developed earlier to predict how they’re going to enjoy consuming your content.   Test Different Methods and Refine Over Time Over time you’ll be able to really nail down the style of content and voice that works best for reaching your audience. In the beginning don’t be afraid to test out different styles of content. However, make sure you track the success of each style of content so you’ll be able to see what’s actually working. The most common form of success tracking is through social media shares, or number of new email subscribers. Both of these metrics show engagement from your audience.   Determine A Regular Posting Schedule Once you’ve found the style of content your audience loves then you need to deliver on a regular basis. The type of content you’re using will also dictate how frequency you post. For instance, Twitter updates will happen more frequently than a YouTube video. People also engage across different platforms at different times, so take this into account when developing and executing your content schedule. Content marketing doesn’t have to be brain science. Know your customer, experiment, and continue to deliver free content they’re going to love. web hosting Continue reading →

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Is Your Business Cyber-Secure?

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Hosting

The post Is Your Business Cyber-Secure? appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Cyber attacks upon large companies are reported in the news quite regularly. In recent times, companies like Target, Ebay, Domino’s Pizza, Home Depot, and AT&T were all hacked, resulting in varying degrees of damages. And it seems that cyber-criminals are getting better at what they do. The Heritage Organization reported that the cost of cyber crime against U.S. retailers more than doubled in just a year’s time. But in spite of the regular news reports about attacks that have occurred, many attacks are never reported publicly. The Heritage report indicates that cyber crime occurs on a daily basis. And many companies that fall victim aren’t even aware that their security has been compromised – at least not initially.   Small Companies Are Also At Risk Most cyber crime reported in the news involves large companies. And that fact might be feeding the false sense of security that exists among a number of small business owners. Many small business owners, in fact, believe that they simply aren’t attractive targets for cyber-criminals. But unfortunately, that’s wrong. That’s very wrong. According to the National Small Business Association , half of small businesses were the victims of a cyber attack last year. Half! And the average cost of each of those attacks was nearly $21,000. So while big businesses are getting most of the spotlight when it comes to cyber crime, small businesses are doing their share of the suffering. It’s true that large companies are attractive to cyber criminals due to the size of the potential payoff from a successful hack. But small businesses are also attractive targets because of the ease with which they can be compromised. Many small businesses just don’t have an effective security plan in place for thwarting cyber criminals.   How To Increase the Cyber-Security of Your Small Business Your small business certainly can’t match the resources allocated to cyber security by a Fortune 500 company. But that doesn’t mean that your company is unavoidably destined to become easy pickings for cyber criminals. The Small Business Administration offers a number of tips for tightening your cyber security, including the following:   Protective Software . Install antivirus and antispy software on all of your company’s computers. Make sure that the software is regularly updated (automated updates are recommended). Cyber-Secure Policies . Put in place policies for the handling of sensitive customer data. Make sure that all employees understand and comply with those policies. Up-To-Date Software . Software such as web browsers and operating systems are regularly updated with maintenance releases, and quite frequently the updates address security issues. Make certain that the software on your computers is kept up-to-date with the latest maintenance releases.   A great way to get started in your quest to tighten your cyber security would be to utilize the Small Biz Cyber Planner offered by the SBA. It’s free, and will help you to create an effective plan for making your business safer. And since knowledge is power, it might also be wise to invest some time in taking the SBA’s free training course about small business cyber security.   The Bigger They Are… The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And that’s why cyber criminals like hacking into big companies. The potential windfall is massive. But cyber crime against small business is also on the rise – big time. That’s partly because of the resources that big companies are committing to increasing their cyber security. And small businesses can fall awfully hard too, relatively speaking. If your small company is the one out of every two that is hit, the consequences can be devastating. So if you haven’t been putting lots of thought and effort into protecting your business against cyber crime, it’s time to do so. In fact, it’s way past time. web hosting Continue reading →

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5 Steps to Creating a Blog that Can Change Your Life

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Hosting

The post 5 Steps to Creating a Blog that Can Change Your Life appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . It’s a bold statement… but it’s true! A blog really can change your life for the better. It doesn’t matter if you are working a regular 9-5 job, currently in school or even an entrepreneur or have your own multi-million dollar business — blogs are amazing and they can do wonders for yourself and your brand. Before I tell you how you can use a blog to “change your life”, it would only make sense for me to first tell you about how a blog did this for myself. After all, what good is advice from someone if they don’t have the means or history to give it! I’ve been an online marketer since roughly 1995, but it wasn’t til 2007 that I decided to launch my own blog at ZacJohnson.com. Through this blog I would focus on building my personal brand and help other learn how to do the same with online marketing. Jump forward almost eight years and the  blog has completely changed my life  and and business for the better — both personally, professionally and monetarily. Now let’s dive into the importance of why you need to create a blog, how simple it is and how it can actually change your life for the better in the process.   Step 1: Getting Started When it comes to getting started with your own web site or blog, it’s actually quite simple. All you need to do is secure a domain name, web hosting and install WordPress. It sounds like a lot, but it’s actually pretty simple. This can all be done through  HostGator  (who I use for many of my sites), or through any other  top web hosting companies . The most important part of this process is picking a domain name ( www.sitename.com ) that you are going to use for your site. I always recommend everyone try to secure their real name as a .com if it’s currently available. The more generic your name, the more likely it will be that it’s already registered. If so, you might just need to get a bit creative. I also recommend you stick with a .com, .net or .org TLD. Lastly, you will also need to setup your web site hosting and install WordPress. All three of these components (domain, hosting and WordPress) can be done within HostGator in just a few minutes time. HostGator also offers one-click WordPress installation, so you don’t need to mess with files or uploading software.   Step 2: Building a Blog with Your Passion in Mind With all that being said, you can appreciate how easy it is to setup a blog of your own and have it live within just a few minutes. It’s also important to note that anyone can setup a blog, and that there are over 200 million blogs on the internet today — which means your blog is going to need to be pretty special to stand out from the crowd. When it comes time to  pick a quality domain name  and launch your blog, you will want to create a blog around your personal name, a passion of yours or your existing business or brand. Before figuring a topic for your blog, here are just a few reasons why people start a blog in the first place: Passion / Hobby – Your own little space on the internet to write about whatever you like. Personal Brand – A place for you to build an online profile, resume and make it easy for others to find you online. Business – Share information on your company while creating quality content around products and services. Most blogs start out as a passion or a fun side project and turn into something much bigger down the road. Obviously, the more passionate you are about something, the more likely you are to put more interest and focus in it. This is where many bloggers fail, as blogging is a longterm project and when  bloggers aren’t seeing the results they are looking for (traffic, readers and revenue), many will lose interest and just stop. At the end of the day, your blog is only as good as the content you create.   Step 3: Creating Killer Content and a Meaningful Blog The success of your blog lies within the content that you create. With hundreds of millions of other blogs out there fighting for attention, you are going to need to creation something pretty amazing to stand out from the crowd. Just on WordPress alone, over 40 million posts are going live every month! (source:  Statista ) To find success in blogging, you also need to be very “ niche specific “. By this we mean very focused. For example, if you want to write about sports, it would be in your best interest to niche down from “sports” to a specific player or team. Here’s how a niching down a topic of focus might work. SPORTS > > BASKETBALL > > NBA > > CLEVELAND CAVALIERS > > LEBRON JAMES The reason you want to niche down is so you can eventually become the authority in your space and reach people that are looking for exactly what you are writing about. The same process we took above can be applied to nearly any niche, service, product or topic. You also don’t want to be too generic, as no one will be able to find exactly what they are looking for when on your site, and it will be way too hard for you to rank in the search results for ‘generic keywords’ at the same time. Once you’ve niche’d down and found a winning topic, it’s time for you to start creating content… but remember, you need to create really awesome content to compete in the world of blogging. Take a look at what the top ranking blogs (based on your topic) are writing about, and see how you can do it better. If they are writing text articles, you need to be doing text and images. If you wanted to take it a level deeper, you could even start doing your own video. The best way to create killer content for your site is to think of yourself as a visitor and if you would actually find value in what you are about to publish.   Step 4: How to Get People to Find Your Blog You have your blog topic, you’ve created content and now you are waiting on an audience… This is where patience comes into play. You need to remember that blogging is a long term project and take time and effort to mature (especially if you aren’t backing it with any paid advertising). However, this doesn’t mean that you need to keep writing content and just “hope” people start coming to your site. Not at all… here’s are some of the best ways to get people to start finding your blog much faster and easier than if you were to “just write content”. Guest blog on other relevant sites in your industry ( KissMetric’s guide to guest blogging ) Setup social media accounts  for both your personal name and your blog / sites Contact other relevant sites in your niche and see if they find value in your content and would like to share it with their audience Leave comments on other popular blogs within your niche (which also leaves incoming links back to your site) Create “out-of-the-box” material for your blog, such as comprehensive guides and  infographics  that others will want to share Each of the methods above are all perfect for growing awareness, traffic and links back to your site… which will also help with your search rankings. Best of all, nearly all of these methods are free and will just take some time for you to setup.   Step 5: Becoming the Authority Within Your Niche After all is said and done… you might just  become an authority in your space  as a result of your blog! To become the authority in your space, you must be very knowledgeable on what you are writing about and also provide value with purpose. For example, if you were just starting a blog and wanted to be well known in the sports world, one of the best ways to do this would be to interview as many professional or well-known athletes as you could. The more interviews you have, the more people will see your name alongside the professional athletes, which brings more attention and authority to your name as well. This same tactic is often used in the world of blogging and online marketing as well. In the previous section I mentioned several ways to get your name out there and how to increase traffic to your blog — all of which also help with establishing yourself as an expert within your industry as well. Once you do become an expert within your industry, that is when the magic happens and opportunities come knocking on your door everyday. When I started my blog, I didn’t have any readers and I was writing content just for myself. Now I have thousands of readers to the site daily and as a result of my blog, I’ve been able to speak at different events around the world, star in a documentary in Hollywood, CA, write a book, meet celebrities and professional athletes and also create a new business and source of income in the process. Yes!  You truly can change your life with a blog… and it all starts with taking action today! ***** Zac Johnson is the CEO of MoneyReign, Inc.   Image source: http://blog.bradleygauthier.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/change-1.jpg web hosting Continue reading →

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Can Inbound Marketing Work For Your Business?

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Hosting

The post Can Inbound Marketing Work For Your Business? appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . If you’ve been doing business online for any time at all, then I’m sure you’ve heard of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is also commonly referred to as content marketing. The old days of outbound marketing are fading into the wind. The older, often ineffective outbound marketing methods include: buying print ads, purchasing email lists, buying TV slots, or other generally invasive ways to market and reach your customer base. On the other hand, inbound marketing starts with creating value from the very start of the interaction.   What Is Inbound Marketing? As we stated simply above, inbound marketing is using content to provide value and educate your readers before they become customers. Inbound marketing is all about creating and sharing content around the web. The main methods used in this style of marketing include creating content and distributing it to the people who are going to benefit from it the most. This style of marketing is more helpful instead of being disruptive like most other methods. If done properly people will actually be happy to hear what you have to offer.   The Benefits Of Inbound Marketing Inbound marketing helps you to become an authority within your industry. It might be a slow climb, but it’s a climb well worth it. When people need information about your industry they’re going to start coming to you due to your high quality content. Inbound marketing allows you to connect with and gain valuable information from your customers via social media platforms. When you distribute your content across these platforms you’ll also be growing your authority. Beyond the content creation aspect of your inbound marketing strategy the costs are usually much lower. After all, if you create evergreen content which is valuable for a very long period of time, you’ll get an almost infinite amount of value from a one-time investment.   The Journey Of Your User One of the most important elements of building a successful content marketing strategy is understanding the route your customer takes. When a person comes across a piece of your content they’re going to be at a certain point along the engagement spectrum. Below you’ll find a breakdown of each phase. You’ll want to create content that addresses readers across each part of their journey. 1. The Attraction Phase During this phase you’ll want to attract the right customers to your business. You’ll do this through blogging and other content outposts, SEO, having your website in alignment and executing a social media strategy. 2. The Conversion Process Once you’ve attracted the right visitors to your website you’ll want to convert them into loyal customers or subscribers. The most common ways to do this are through optin forms on your website, effective calls to action, and using other elements like landing pages. 3. Closing The Deal After you’ve attracted the right readers through content and social outposts and converted them into subscribers, it’s time to close the deal and turn them into happy customers. There are several ways to track what’s working, but the most common are as follows: Use the power of a CRM system to keep track of customer data so you can optimize the sales process over time. Use an email autoresponder system with calls to action, and analyze data to increase your conversations over time. Use the power of marketing automation to feed different styles of content and information to users depending on how they found your company. Continuing The Interaction Inbound marketing really shines in your ability to delight and astonish your users. A lot of companies simply forget about their customers the moment they make a sale. However, once the sale is complete this can be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. You can use inbound marketing methods to continually educate your customers and find ways to serve them in deeper ways. For instance, you can use surveys to uncover hidden niches within your current market. Inbound marketing covers the entire life cycle your customer, from attraction all the way through building a lifelong relationship, and it all begins with quality content. web hosting Continue reading →

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