News & Blog

Email is still very much at the core of any conversations and conversions happening in the digital world. Like any means of communication, email is evolving. How can marketers adapt to the changes in the most meaningful way?

For starters, it makes a great deal of sense to give your “creative” a makeover. If your email templates and messaging are like most, they could probably use some revamping. Your customers will notice the upgrade, and react in a positive way toward it. The truth is, any strategic creative changes you make to your email program are sure to have both a dramatic and quick impact.

How about the influence mobile is having on email marketing? With the explosive growth of Apple’s iPhone (and its many followers and clones), email has become the number-one activity that consumers perform on their smartphones. That said, you must plan how best to reach consumers at the right time and place with emails, coupons and deals. Once you get their attention, you must determine how best to track them, so you can keep them loyal to your business.

Let’s not forget integration. It was and still is key for the success of any email program. Which is why it’s important for your email to be in sync with what’s going on within your company and outside it. This means coordinating teamwork and education with the groups that handle both search and social to those in charge of e-commerce, technology, and offline efforts. In other words, your email program cannot live in isolation. That is, if you want it to be effective.

With the economy beginning to show signs of recovery, and email’s proven return on investment, the time is right to transform your email program from one that manages and delivers emails to a flexible and strategic one that’s proficient at moving your business forward, not just your campaign message. To do that, you’ll need to find and retain email marketing experts, and put them to work.

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

The local Yellow Pages used to be the first place people turned to find local businesses. People still use their fingers to do the walking. But not just in the Yellow Pages. The Internet is now the number one place where people go to give their digits a workout.

Numerous studies and industry sources conclude that people are using the Internet to look for local companies with which they want to do business. Why not, it’s lot easier to type in words such as “office supplies,” “oil companies,” and “limousine service” on their keyboards than it is to comb through the pages of their phone books.

Here’s how people (potential customers) are looking for businesses these days—

• Three out of ten are going onto Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask.com to search for products and services that they need.
• Three out of ten are still doing their “searching” the old school way in the Yellow Pages or White Pages.
• Two out of ten are searching Internet directories, especially to find telephone numbers of businesses.
• One out of ten trek to map sites like Google Maps or Yahoo Local for directions.
• While the smallest number find information on businesses from newspapers or magazines.

Here’s a surprising fact: social networking sites, the rage these days, may be effective for building brand recognition, but they’re not too successful for helping people find a business when it’s time to make a purchase.

What does all this mean? With nearly six out of ten people beginning the buying process by searching online, local businesses must improve their results in search engines if they want to improve their sales. The most effective way to do this is by making sure your business is findable online and that your title tags are optimized. Business owners can do this themselves, but many opt to hire a professional. Either way, it must get done if you want your site and your business to be found.

So let your fingers do the walking, and find yourself some experts to help make your site findable for all those folks out there searching for goods and services, and for you.

Best of Days to You,
Audrey Ferrante

We’re slowly becoming a cashless society. However, the pace will soon begin to pick up. That’s because major players like MasterCard and Google are on the verge of rolling out some new cashless strategies. At the outset, the benefits of going cashless for shoppers will be convenience, but over time, the ability to make mobile payments will create an entirely new data-driven environment of rewards, purchase history, deals, etc. All of which will benefit marketers and shoppers alike.

Many of the new cashless strategies will be based on Near Field Communication (NFC). When incorporated into a device such as a smartphone, NFC allows for encrypted data exchange between two devices, which are near to each other, i.e. your smartphone and a retail cash register. This is how the technology got its name – Near Field.

Shoppers who have their credit card information stored in their NFC-enabled smartphones can pay for purchases by simply waving their smartphones near or tapping them on the reader, instead of pulling out and handing the cashier their credit cards like in the soon-to-be old days.

The Internet has given us the ability to present a shopping experience of unlimited choices. If you’re planning to update or create a new online storefront, be sure your site is ready for the future.

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante