Still in an ‘invitation only beta format’ you might want to sit up and take notice though! This month Shareaholic published statistics showing that Pinterest outpaced Twitter and Google referral  for referral traffic. Basically, more folks followed links from Pinterest than on Twitter. It’s surprising to a lot of people!

What does this mean for your business? Well, if you have a brand or product that can be communicated readily through graphics, art or video, Pinterest might just be another weapon to add to your online marketing arsenal.

But understand that blatant promotion and advertising doesn’t work on Pinterest. You have to be able to communicate a concept, feeling or quality in an attractive or provocative manner to really make use of what Pinterest has to offer. And in order to do that, you really have to be clear about your niche and brand.

If you want to join Pinterest, shoot me an email and I”ll send you an invite. Let’s explore the potential of Pinterest and share our experiences!

What makes an email marketing system good or not?

It depends upon your needs but at the very least you should be able to easily import your list, have tools to build your list using forms and links, have access to decent HTML email templates, and decent reports and analytics to track the success of your campaigns and auto responders.

What is double opt-in or permissions based emailing?

Due to the huge rise in email spam, this system was created to help guarantee genuine email leads and protect you from being accused of spamming. It’s also meant to discourage spammers from using these email marketing systems.

Double opt-in is when a person signs up for your emails and the system then sends a follow up confirmation email in which they must click on a link to complete the sign up process. The advantage to this is that you have now received their permission to send them emails and can’t be accused of spamming. The disadvantage is that if you import your list from somewhere else and have to receive a confirmation from them in order to use their email, you stand the chance of losing those leads if they don’t bother to open the email or decide not to sign up (why break something that’s already working?).

Most systems give you the option to not do the double opt-in but it is considered smart email marketing sense  to do so. You can think of it as having a qualified lead as apposed to an unknown.

Now that I’ve given you a little primer on email marketing, here are some of the features I’ll be reviewing:

• pricing (free, by list size, or by emails sent a month)
• backend function and ease of navigating the creation and sending of a campaign
• mandatory “double opt-in”
• auto responder capability
• forms (for sign ups on websites and in emails)
• email templates
• reporting & analytics
• any extras like social media integration, API integration capabilities with other marketing applications

I’ll be reviewing  MailChimp, aWeber, Emma and Constant Contact — four of the most popular email marketing systems for small to medium sized businesses currently available, and ones that I have used.

MailChimp

I consider MailChimp to be a great beginner’s system and one of the most affordable and easiest email systems around. It’s free if you don’t need an autoresponder (setting up a campaign to auto drip over time or, instant  response to a new sign up).  The backend interface is really easy and is actually kind of fun…they have a humorous chimp cartoon theme going on!

–> You can have up to 2000 subscribers with up to 12,000 email sends a month, for free! The catch is that you don’t get certain perks like the auto responder feature and some email troubleshooting and social media pro tools.

MailChimp does not demand a permissions based, or double opt-in sign up system but requires that you confirm that the folks you are importing into your database have given their permission.

• They provide some very basic forms for web and email sign up — the least exciting thing about MailChimp from my point of view. They don’t have many design options and they are a bit clunky to set up.

• The email WYSIWYG/HTML editor is pretty straight forward with the ability to customize just about every part of your email, and plenty of good template designs to choose from.

• It’s also really easy to set up split campaigns to test which titles or subject lines cause the most opens.

• I love the ease and simplicity of their email campaign tracking — a very clear and easy to read dashboard showing a campaign’s opt outs, un-opens, opens, click through (if they clicked on any of your links in the email), and emails marked as spam by a recipient.

• Their 3rd party integration capabilities (automatic data dumps into MailChimp from other websites, Transaction application plugins, etc)  when I last checked were not as sophisticated as some of the other email systems, but I notice that they are integrating with more eCommerce packages, Amazon Simple Email System for businesses, and the obligatory social media sites. I experienced that even when I had a coder guy who could create some custom integration between another site and MailChimp, MailChimp was not able to accommodate it like some of the other email systems out there.

If you need auto responder capability, pricing starts at $10 a month for 500 leads all the way up to $240 a month for up to 25,000 leads. All paid accounts have unlimited email sends.

–> Be aware that their auto responder can take up to 24 hours for an email to trigger once someone signs up to your email system. That is slow from my point of view.

So if you just need an inexpensive campaign/email blast system with an easy and functional backend, I highly recommend MailChimp.

aWeber

This email system is the darling of small business and internet marketers. Personally I use this email system for my businesses (with a little MailChimp on the side).

• They have fantastic forms for using on your website and in emails. Very easy to set up and use, with a huge array of easily customizable and snappy designs.

• Their HTML email templates aren’t fantastic which is disappointing because everything else basically sings with aWeber. I’d love to see them improve this area of their offering.

• It’s really easy to set up lists, then your forms and your campaigns and auto responders. All this comes with every price level. The auto responder system is really robust and lets you send to segments of your list, other lists in your account and more. It’s easy to schedule the pace of your auto responders for instance.

• They have a subscription fee that everyone pays of $20/month. If you have over 500 leads in your list, you add $10 on top of that. Pricing is incremental all the way up to $130 + subscription fee for up to 25,000 leads. Unlimited email sends for all levels.

• aWeber makes it easy to segment and track your overall campaigns. You can track ads, specific web pages and sales pages connected to your lists by inserting java script into those pages. Their reporting and analytics takes a bit to figure out though…not as intuitive as I’d like.

• Their integration is outstanding, with many API connections already available with simple set up. Lot’s of eCommerce and transactional systems available. Their help desk is great and the folks there are all really smart.

They offer your first month for a $1 so you can try it out and see if you like it.

I would recommend aWeber for smaller and larger businesses. Their set up is easy, while allowing for more technical capability when it comes to reporting and integration with other systems.

So, if you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of partial to aWeber!

Constant Contact

Constant Contact has a little bit of both MailChimp and aWeber. A fairly intuitive backend, pretty easy to navigate, set up your lists and first emails and includes auto responders. For a fee you can add on surveys and event marketing capabilities.

• Their web forms for netting new leads are a bit clunky. As someone who has lot’s of websites needing attractive forms for list building, it’s important to me for an email system to have easy, quick form options available. Constant contact focuses more on including email sign up links in signatures or creating a larger form for a sign up page.  That’s good but options for sidebar and Facebook sized widgets are a must for most online marketers.

• Email template design is one area that Constant Contact excels in! They have a robust variety of very clean email templates for different markets that you can choose from if you can’t design your own.

• Split testing is manual and very clunky in Constant Contact. You basically have to create your A & B lists by copying them to a new list from your main list. Or, you can export your main list to Excel, segment, and re-import the split list.  You also have to set up two different emails that you will send separately. Ugh! (MailChimp segments your chosen list for if you choose, and gives you two Subject Line fields for your A & B segments within the one email. Very easy and clean!)

• The reports and analytics are basic and easy to read. It lists the usual opt-ins, bounces, clicks etc. in both text and graphical format. There’s also a function to manage bounces; you can remove them from your list or just mark them do not send.

• They have some basic integration with PayPal and others, and the standard Social Media integration. But I notice that their partnership with Network Solutions eCommerce does not include an automatic data feed of leads into your email database..you still have to manually import your leads from your website into Constant Contact. That’s a pretty pointless partnership and disappointing.

The one thing I’ve always disliked about Constant Contact is that unless you pay $5/month extra you are only allowed 5 images in your file manager at any one time for use in your emails.

Their pricing starts at $15 for up to 500 contacts (but add the $5 for images so it’s really $20) on up to $150 a month (plus $5) for up to 25,000 contacts. All accounts get unlimited sends. They offer a 60 day free trail for new customers! So, their pricing is pretty decent.

If you need a nice choice of email templates that look professional but don’t mind less functional list building tools, Constant Contact is a good system to use for a small business.

Emma or MyEmma

Emma is a higher priced email system for the customer that wants someone else to do the work, make it look good and can afford it. They have a fantastic customer support system and really do cater to the folks who want more help.

• Their pricing is based on email sends and not contact list size. They start at $30 for up to 1000 sends and go up to $350 for up to 50,000 sends. After that, like the other email systems, you get into custom pricing. They also offer the first 60 days free!

• Surveys and forms are included in your account. They have a really intuitive backend so it is easy to set up your emails, import your lists, and track the performance of your campaigns.

• They do abide by permissions email marketing and use the double opt-in system for anti-spam and confirming your sign ups.

• They have great integration with other applications, including Salesforce.com and more. Again, they have a fantastic customer service and help desk department who will go the extra mile for you.

The cost of having your email templates designed is extra. They have three packages to choose from, the first one starting at around $99. The one thing Emma has down is design and custom branding. Your emails will look really good coming from Emma!

So, if you have the money and you want a strong professional design, and are not a DIY person, then Emma is the one for you.

If you have any questions concerning email marketing, which provider to choose, or need help setting up your email marketing please don’t hesitate to contact me!

Summary

The advantages to business pages via Google are great – particularly in SEO and making use of the Plus1 button.

Go here to set up your Google Plus Business Page!

Here’s the original apology from Netlix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Tn8n5CIPk

One thing that gets pointed out toot suite is that he is actually lumping marketing in with advertising, which is not the same thing, but he makes some really interesting points. These are my two favorites

“Early in a startup, product decisions should be hunch driven. Later on, product decisions should be data driven”

“Early in a startup you need to acquire your customers for free. Later on, you can spend (money) on customer acquisition.”

It drives home that 1) your product or service needs to be so attractive, clear and kick @ss from the start that it can sell itself and 2) creating a buzz about it doesn’t have to cost you lot’s of money initially.

That being said, you still need to spend the time (or money) clarifying your market  and getting ‘it’ in front of them.

At any rate, enjoy this read. Here it is again…  http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/02/marketing.html

If you haven’t checked lately, LinkedIn enhancements over the past couple of years have made it a hot spot for networking — from sharing your industry’s latest news to finding a job. It’s also another great way to get yourself visible on the search engines.

Tips like making sure you grab your personal ‘vanity url’, to using apps on your LinkedIn profile. I don’t know about you but I’m going to be implementing as many of these options as I can, if I haven’t already!

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Mastering LinkedIn  from HubSpot.

So far, it’s very similar to Facebook in that there is a stream for posting in. (yeah, I know, another freaking social media site to spend our time on!) They have not created a business facing version yet so currently everyone involved in the beta test is using it as a personal profile. So, you won’t see any business pages yet.

What’s new and cool!

• Instead of groups you have ‘circles’. You can easily set your posts to your chosen circles so that each post can be customized to be viewed only by who you want to see it. No more offending a business associate with your political opinions. Now that is really cool!
• Google+ has something called Hang Outs — this is my favorite! It allows you to have video conference calls and chats with more than one person at once. Skype doesn’t even have this yet without paying!
• Freebie — it provides one more way to insert yourself powerfully into Google search engine! Your Google+ profile creates a nicely formatted online description and link for anyone that might search you or come upon you.

Personally, Google+ is only just sort of taking off in terms of finding new folks to include in my circles, accessing information and networking, but the basic platform is so powerful with Google that I can’t wait until this application hits it’s stride!

Here’s a great article overviewing Google+ and what’s involved: Mashable’s Google+ Guide

I’ll be posting more about Google+, it’s features and amazing add ons as it builds in popularity.

Be sure to sign up for your free Google+ account. I’ll be posting a short video soon on how to easily set up and optimize your profile.

In reality, when it comes to your target market and business offering, refining and focusing will create a much greater advantage for you.

Why is that?
The online market place is vast, with huge amounts of information and products available to the online customer. How do you stand out in that? Data and information swamps us. What consumers are looking for is depth and expertise in the midst of this overwhelm. We need help refining and focusing our search.

You provide that by 1) making sure your product or service offering isn’t too broad and diluted and  2) clarifying who your actual target market is and focusing your marketing specifically to them.

Clarify your service offering by:

• considering what you do best and what you enjoy doing the most
• refining and streamlining what your current offer is (something I continually have to do!)
• researching if that niche would have a market – keyword analysis, online research, personal experience, etc

Then consider who your market is:

• Create a fictitious ‘ideal’ client or customer — flesh them out by gender, appearance, locale, preferences, lifestyle, etc. and you will find out a lot about who your market is
• online research and your experience of that market thus far

These are just a few tips to help maximize your online business and marketing. If you would like to have a free 30 minute consultation to go over your current business and online marketing strategy, please sign up below.

Once you have a clearly branded website and social media presence, you need to put gas in the engine. That gas is regular blog posts where you share your unique perspective on your market’s topic. It doesn’t have to be long, but it needs to be pertinent and useful to your audience.

Once you write your blog post, the power is in syndicating it by posting it on Facebook and Twitter. By doing this, you not only increase your reach but you’re creating search engine attractiveness. Step it up a notch and place your post on a popular forum related to your industry – and be sure to include your website address in your signature so you create a backlink to your site.

It’s important to maintain a regular schedule of posts to keep this engine running smoothly. Over time you will see an increase in traffic and hopefully comments on your blog.

—> “But how can I keep up on my content syndication cycle?” you ask. Well, you either do it yourself or hire someone, or both!

Webface Marketing is starting to offer this service at an affordable rate! Contact us to find out how we can help.

1) When you get your renewal notice, don’t procrastinate in renewing!

It seems innocuous enough of an email — not unlike the gazillion you might receive in advance of a domain name needing renewal. But in small type in the email it will usually say it takes 7-10 days for your renewal to occur and give the date of actual expiration. They mean it! If you wait too long and miss renewal by the expiration date, you’ll find your web host has activated a “Non-Secure Site” page that comes up when a customer goes to purchase an item, giving your visitors the option to ‘continue at their own risk’, or leave immediately.

There are a couple ramifications from this — both obvious and not so obvious. The obvious – folks may not come back to your site again, or you’ve just lost a potential new customer. But less obvious is that the visitor’s browser will note this non-secure site and block the site if they try and visit it again. Security software is built to notice and block unsafe sites and, worst case scenario, share this data across their platform. Not good!

The other issue that can cascade from a non-secure SSL cert is it’s effect on your PCI Compliance. If you use a merchant account for payment processing on your site you may be familiar with this new requirement. There is a new mandatory service your merchant account is required to have in place to cut down on fraud and bank losses. A 3rd party monitors your site monthly or quarterly to ensure that it is secure and valid. If your site comes up as un-secured when they run their checks, you get dinged $30 every month you are not secure, and could eventually lose your merchant account.

2) If you miss your deadline call your web host and ask them to remove the Non-Secure Site Page and expedite your SSL cert renewal. Sometimes this works. At the least, since most SSL certificates are not handled directly by your web host, they can at least remove the Non-Secure Page.

So, the moral of the story is — take your SSL Cert renewal VERY seriously, or you could find your online business tanking very quickly.