Bulk Up Your Marketing Efforts with SumoMe

Wrestling with growing your audience? Grappling with landing page conversion rates? Then we’ve got the thing for you! We’re happy to announce our newest integration with SumoMe, an innovative platform built to help marketers create high-converting landing pages, grow their email lists, and make sense of their website traffic and visitor behavior.
 
Get on the Mat!
 
One of the biggest challenges marketers face is conversion. How can I get my site visitors to subscribe, opt-in, and not abandon the page altogether? SumoMe’s Welcome Mat tool helps you do just that.

Welcome Mat displays a full-screen call-to-action when visitors land on your site. You can use this page to encourage visitors to join your email list, check out your blog post, or whatever action you want them to take.

With its completely customizable design and mobile optimization, you can increase your email conversion rate through better visitor engagement. Best of all, Welcome Mat is integrated with VerticalResponse, so any email addresses you collect with the tool will automatically be added as new contacts to a VR list of your choice. This is a great way to immediately engage and convert a site visitor, while increasing productivity since you won’t have to enter each new contact into VR manually. Check out Welcome Mat here!

 
Tip the Scales with List Builder
 
If utilizing a full-page call-to-action isn’t a great fit for your site, SumoMe has another solution. List Builder is a fully-customizable lightbox pop-up used to prompt conversion at just the right time. List Builder’s Smart Mode technology detects the exact moment when a visitor is about to leave, and then entices them with a call-to-action or signup form so you’re less likely to lose that visitor. And, again, thanks to List Builder’s sync capability with VerticalResponse, any email addresses given will automatically be added as a new contact in your VR list.

Timely and strategic visitor engagement is key to conversion. List Builder will help you with this targeted interaction, and also decrease your workload since you won’t have to add these new contacts manually to your VR Lists!

 
How Can I Sync SumoMe and VR?
 
It’s quick and easy!

1.  Select any of the SumoMe apps for collecting emails: List Builder, Welcome Mat, Scroll Box, or Smart Bar.

2.  In your campaign, select the Services tab and click on VerticalResponse.

3.  On the next page, click “Connect.”

4.  Sign in with your VeritcalResponse credentials.

5. Select the VR list to which you’d like each collected email pushed.

6. All set!

Let us know how this integration works for you.

© 2015, VerticalResponse Blog. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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9 Social Media Hacks Every Small Business Can Benefit From

Are you currently using social media sites to enhance your business’s online strategy? Posting to these platforms on a regular basis is a great place to start. If you want to increase sales, brand awareness, and website traffic, you’ll have to up your social marketing game by going a bit further.

These nine social media marketing hacks will help you:

• Sell products on your social sites
• Find enticing images to grow your brand awareness
• Drive more traffic to your brand’s website and blog

Hacks to help sell products on social sites

Your website shouldn’t be the only place for customers to browse and buy your products. Remember that your social sites can also serve as mini, digital storefronts too.

Why not entice your social audiences to make a purchase in 140 characters or less for example.  When it comes to selling items on your social sites, you have a few options.

1. Turn to Facebook ads

Facebook has an easy-to-use advertising platform, which allows you to showcase your product to an audience of your choosing. To maximize your views, be sure to target your ad by location, age or interests.

In terms of cost, the ads are affordable. You can start an ad campaign for as little as five bucks, with the idea of progressive spending as you focus on reaching more customers over time.

• See it in action: Here’s an example of a Facebook ad.

2. Use a ‘shoppable’ app like Shoppost

This handy resource creates ads for your Facebook page. The ads can display an image and also provide pricing, colors, and sizes. When a customer clicks on the ad, he or she is taken directly to your site to check out.

Keep in mind, your website must use Shopify, Etsy, Amazon or Bigcommerce as its e-commerce platform for this tool to work, but it makes buying simple for your customers.

You can check out the site to see the ads.

3. Try a ‘Like2Buy’ button to increase sales

Ready to turn the great images you share on Instagram into transactional posts? Use Curalate’s Like2Buy option. Customers can see your products and, like the Shoppost app, are directed to your website to make a purchase. Users can even save products in their own gallery to purchase later.

• See it in action: Target uses the Like2Buy tool. Take a look at TargetStyle on Instagram. By clicking on any one of the products, you’re taken to the Target site to make a purchase.

Hacks to help you find and post eye-catching images

Social media is propelled by images. With so many images in social streams, you can’t post any old picture and expect viewers to pay attention. To beat the competition, you have to upload creative and clear images. So how do you get your hands on images that attract attention and spark engagement? Here are a few hacks to help:

4. Consider using paid stock sites

You can buy images on stock photo sites like iStock or Shutterstock. Set up a folder on your laptop and keep the images in an accessible folder so you can build a photo library.

Using stock photos is probably the most common way to obtain creative images, but it can be costly.

5. Browse free stock sites

If you don’t have a budget for pictures, turn to Flickr. Through their Creative Commons section, you can search images that are free. However, you’ll want to narrow your search depending on how you plan to use the image.

For example, if you plan to use the image for a commercial purpose, search under “commercial use allowed.” Just go to the creative commons section and use the drop menu on the upper left side to narrow your search. Here’s what you’ll see:

While the images are free, when you post it on your site you need to provide attribution.

6. Standout by creating a cinemagraph

Everyone is vying for visual attention, so how can you stand out? Try creating and posting a cinemagraph. What’s a cinemagraph? It’s a still image with a small section of animation. It’s like a GIF, but with better quality and control.

Since Facebook has an autoplay video feature and Instagram can play videos on a loop, these mini-moving images are powerful and attention grabbing. You can create cinemagraphs by using apps like Cinemagr.am or Flixel.

• See it in action: Coca-Cola posted this cinemagraph to its Tumblr page.

Hacks to use social media marketing to increase website traffic

Your website and social media networks should work well together. To accomplish this, you’ll want to shuttle traffic between the two sites. In other words, links on your social sites should direct people to your website, and links on your website should bring customers to your social sites.

What’s the best way to keep this digital highway flowing?

7. Install ‘ClickToTweet’

This free tool puts a small ‘Click to Tweet’ link next to any piece of text, which allows your customers to then share that selected text on their Twitter feed.

How can you incorporate it? You could put together a list of frequently asked questions on your website, or a short list of statistics that customers can share. The ‘Click to Tweet’ link can sit next to any valuable tidbit of information. When clicked, the sentence automatically loads to Twitter. All the customer has to do is click ‘share’, and it hits the Twittersphere.

Check out the ClickToTweet website to set it up. If you’re using WordPress, you can use a specific plugin to seamlessly add the ClickToTweet feature.

• See it in action: A healthcare website wrapped up a blog post with these statistics and used the ‘Click to Tweet’ link after each one.

8. Increase social traffic with a ‘Hello Bar’

Create a call to action button on the top of your website that drives traffic to your social sites. A Hello Bar is a thin bar that appears at the top of your website that contains a short message and a call to action.

The best part about a Hello Bar is its versatility. You can change the call to action and the message to achieve a variety of goals. You can encourage people to visit your social sites, sign up for your email list, download an e-book or visit a specific page on your website.

Visit the Hello Bar website to learn more.

• See it in action: Here’s what a Hello Bar looks like:

9. Use Colibri.io to ‘listen’ on social media

What are people saying about your business? It’s impossible to monitor every comment made, but Colibri.io makes it easier. This platform collects data across social media sites and shows you exactly what people are saying about your business, industry as well as your competitors.

With this information, you can insert yourself into the conversation. You’ll be able to offer help to customers that are unhappy with a competitor’s service, drive traffic to your website, and maintain your overall online reputation. 

Final thoughts

These nine hacks will help improve your sales and customer engagement; however, you don’t have to implement all of these changes at once. Try to set up a new tool every month so you can learn how each one fits best with your digital brand.

© 2015, VerticalResponse Blog. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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Social Media & Your Business: Choosing the Best Platform

So you want to define a social media strategy for your business? The place to start is with a full understanding of the most widely-used social platforms, their unique purpose, and whether or not your business will be able to reach its target audience.

Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest all trend highly with small and medium-sized business owners. With the greatest volume of users per month, these platforms allow you to build a following, showcase new products, and sometimes act as an arm of customer service.

We’ll look at what differentiates these three popular networks, comparing various key metrics so you can feel confident starting your path towards social media success.

Getting Started

To begin, frame your evaluation of each platform with the following questions:

1. What is the unique purpose of this platform?
2. Do its attributes relate to my business’s needs?
3. Which target audience does this platform serve?
4. How much time on this network is necessary to have the best impact?

Evaluating Purpose and Unique Attributes

There’s no shortage of social-driven platforms so spend time exploring once you’ve gotten your feet wet. You’ll find that Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are more than likely the places with the highest concentration of your key demographics. In examining the purpose and unique attributes of each, you’ll find that though they are all ‘social’, they have different strengths and selling points.

Facebook 

Primary Purpose: Builds brand loyalty and reputation. Establishes your business as an authority through interesting content and informational posts.

Unique Attributes:

• Reaches a variety of segments of an audience with one post
• Offers opportunity to create ads to drive traffic to your website/blog
• Encourages dialogue and depth with a customer base
• Ideal for sharing personal stories, testimonials, detailed information about your business

Twitter

Primary Purpose: Shares breaking news and quick updates, promotes new products, content, or brand contests, collects instant feedback from your audience.

Unique Attributes:

• Serves people looking for quick info, company news, and immediate response to questions about products or events
• Focuses on dialogue creation and starting conversations with customers
• Known for its hashtag (#) communication functionality
• Best platform for PR/publicity purposes when traditional media does not respond

Pinterest

Primary Purpose: Acts as an online scrapbook, showcases products, and displays brand essence through inspiration boards.

Unique Attributes:

• Generates leads and drives traffic to other content (or back to your website)
• Visually promotes and highlights products/services through images
• Provokes immediate or future Call-to-Action (CTA) responses
• Allows you to micro-target your search with clearly defined categories

Most businesses find that Facebook helps strengthen relationships once initially established. If you want to grow an audience around promotions and sales, Twitter or Pinterest has the quickest impact. Check out these informative results of the 2014 Pew Research Center study.

Understand and find your target audience

Defining your target audience and knowing where to find them is the foundation to navigating the non-stop maze of social media. Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest each have significantly different mixes in regards to average age and gender:

Facebook

Average Age Range of Users:  25-45 years old

Gender of Users:   60% female, 40% male

Twitter

Average Age Range of Users:  18-29 years old

Gender of Users:   50% female, 50% male

Pinterest

Average Age Range of Users:  18-35 years old

Gender of Users:   80% female, 20% male

If you’re looking for ways to define the particular needs of your audience, consider developing personas for your target social media audience. This will create a precise vision of exactly who they are, what content or information they’re craving, and where you should focus to communicate with them.

Consider the time commitment required

The keyword in social media is ‘social’, probably the most understated and forgotten portion of the equation. Not unlike good public relations, businesses should use social media as a source of ‘2-way communication’ with their audience, regardless of the platform.

This means that in addition to posting articles, videos, and other relevant posts you want your audience to ‘Like’ and ‘Share’, you need to interact with them.

How often should I post to my social networks?

• Facebook:  1-2 times per day or 6 times a week
• Twitter:  3-4 times a day or 20 times a week
• Pinterest:  2-3 times per day or 10 times a week

 

The average amount of time spent by small businesses on social media per week? 6 hours and counting.

Bottom line: Don’t feel pressured to be on every platform. Start with the one that connects you with the right audience, aligns with your business’s needs, and one you can regularly manage.

Want more insight on social media marketing? Sign up for an upcoming ‘Fundamentals of Social Media’ webinar.

© 2015, VerticalResponse Blog. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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Emails That Encourage Customer Engagement

How are you currently engaging your customers? Studies show engaged customers have positive responses to businesses, which translate into higher sales.

You want customers to love your brand and go out of their way to buy your product or service. Loyal customers like these can boost your revenue by 23 percent, according to a customer engagement survey conducted by Gallup.

One of the easiest ways to increase customer engagement is through email. By sending the right messages and promotions, you can increase engagement and sales.

What kinds of emails should you send? We’re glad you asked.

This guide will help you create four emails (featuring examples!) that are designed specifically to boost engagement. Plus, we’ll highlight the components of the email that you should try to mimic when you sit down to create your own.

1. Welcome email

Making a good first impression is vital when it comes to customer engagement. You want to start the relationship off right with a conversational and friendly tone that is in the voice of your brand. Show the customer your appreciation and explain the benefits of your email list.

In this example, UK retailer House of Fraser provides an introduction to its new guests with this friendly and organized welcome email:

Tips to create a welcome email:

• Be conversational. Write a welcome email like you would write to a friend.
• Highlight the benefits of your email list, just as the example does.
• Pick an email template that provides an organized, clean look.
• Keep the color scheme and font simple – and on brand.
• Provide a call to action that takes customers to your site.
• Consider offering a promotion to get new customers to make an immediate purchase.

Pro tip: Consider automating your welcome email.

With a VerticalResponse account, you can trigger an email to send within hours of a new contact joining your list. All you have to do is create the email and set up a delivery time. It’s a hassle-free way to guarantee immediate engagement with prospective customers.

When you’re ready, use these step-by-step instructions to automate your emails through VerticalResponse.

2. Event email

What better way to engage your customers than to talk with them face-to-face? Whether you host a holiday sale, customer appreciation event or a webinar, interacting with customers on a personal level is one of the best ways to make a connection.

Event emails are just as important for non-profits too. When volunteers and donors see their contributions in action, they’re engaged and more likely to continue their support.

Here’s an example of an event email template:

A food bank invites guests to an upcoming event with this simple, yet informative email.

Tips to create an event email:

• Cover the five W’s. Tell the reader who, what, where, when and why as illustrated in the example above.
• Give the reader tips, if necessary. For example, tell them where to park, how to find the registration table, what to bring or a link to a course map.
• Provide a way to register or sign up.

Pro tip: Use tools to improve the registration process.

Customers can register by sending you an email, but there are registration tools that can help.

Try creating a Facebook Event. With this tool, guests can RSVP to your event. Once you create the event on Facebook, include the link in an invitation email. When a customer clicks on the link, they’re taken right to Facebook to RSVP. Plus, your fans can invite their friends, which can give your attendance numbers a real boost.

When you’re ready to create a Facebook event, check out these step-by-step instructions.

If you’re hosting an event that requires a registration fee, you should check out PayPal or Eventbrite. You can set up a page for your event and, once again, use that link in your email so customers can easily register for your event. Both PayPal and Eventbrite will take a small percentage of each transaction.

3. Email Newsletter

Friends swap stories about their day and keep each other informed about what’s happening in their lives. To maintain a friendly relationship with your customers or donors, you should do the same. Keep your audience in the know by sending out a regular newsletter. The more your audience knows about your business, the more likely they are to frequent your checkout counter.

Here’s an example of a newsletter:

SurveyMonkey sends a well-designed newsletter that’s full of helpful advice.

Tips to create an email newsletter:

• Provide informational content. You can promote an event or a product occasionally, but your newsletter should focus on engagement rather than sales.
• Use pictures. A newsletter shouldn’t just be text-based; it should have some images to add a little spice, like the example above. You can take your own pictures, or you can turn to a stock image site like iStock.
• Create calls to action that take users to your website or social sites.

Pro tip: How to get new ideas for your newsletter.

Coming up with topics for your newsletter can be tricky, especially since a newsletter is an ongoing commitment. Your newsletter is free space that can cover a range of topics, but when you’re stuck, turn to our list of ‘75 Email Newsletter Topics’ for help.

4. A ‘freebie email’

Keep customers smiling (and buying) with an occasional free offer. Consider offering a gift with purchase, tickets to a local event or a free download. A freebie is a nice way to maintain that warm, loyal feeling that you’re working for.

Here’s an example:

Craftsy offers a free pattern with this email.

Tips to create a freebie email:

• Keep the giveaway simple. You don’t need to break the bank over it; it’s more about a kind gesture than anything else.
• Give a reason for the freebie. Maybe it’s something you offer every week, like the example above, or maybe the freebie is a thank you to your loyal customers.
• Include links back to your website. Drive traffic back to your site by adding links. For example, add a ‘check out our latest deals’ link or a ‘follow us on Facebook’ link, so you provide additional ways for customers to engage with your brand.

Pro tip: Segment your list.

You don’t have to offer a freebie to everyone on your list. This is a great time to segment your contacts. Offer the freebie to your loyal customers, first-time clients or inactive customers that you’re trying to bring back.

If you need a little segment inspiration, check out ‘6 Ways to Segment Your Email List.’ You can also get instructions on how to segment your list in your VerticalResponse account.

Of course, these are just four ways to engage your audience. You can also create a social media competition and invite people to participate via email. Consider creating a survey and ask customers what they’d like to see from your company. Feel free to get creative and explore new ways to engage your audience through email marketing.

© 2015, VerticalResponse Blog. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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