With more people searching and researching companies on the web and making their purchasing decisions online, your website could easily be the first thing a potential customer sees about your business. Having a corporate website design that hasn't been updated in years conveys that your company doesn't belong in 2010. Regardless of the industry you're in, it's imperative to keep your website up-to-date. There are a few simple ways you can see if it is time for you to revamp your website. Lack of intelligent reporting and analytics - Your website is a powerful medium through which you can engage your audience. ...

When advertising on Google using Google AdWords, it is important to pay attention to the Quality Score assigned to the keywords you are targeting. The quality score is a number from one to ten that approximates how Google expects keywords to perform. There are four main aspects that your Quality Score affects: The quality score determines whether your ad is eligible to enter the auction for the keyword. The quality score figures out where to position your ad relative to the other ads on that page. A higher quality score reduces the price you bid on a keyword position. High quality score ads are given ...

As a full service marketing agency, it’s kind of hard not to notice the marketing efforts utilized by the businesses around us. It’s great to see campaigns being launched and creativity being stretched. So we thought it would be interesting to make this a regular series and see what companies are doing to help grow their business and increase their exposure. Today’s featured business: Clear In the last few months, I’ve had three different Clear sales agents stop by our office. Clear has taken the city by storm with its 4G WiMax technology and affordable rate plans. Technology is constantly advancing, ...

The US Postal Service is now planning on stopping delivery to street addresses and some processing, but it will not close post offices. Originally, USPS planned to shut down processing on Saturdays and Sundays. These changes are in response to business mailers in order to process remittance mail on Saturday. Remittance mail includes payments from customers to businesses as well as checks that banks send each other. Cutting Saturday processing would have meant that checks would not move for two days. USPS would also deliver and process Express Mail all week, but eliminate Saturday delivery of Propority Mail. The estimated annual savings with ...

Segmenting your the email list for your email newsletter is the easiest way to improve the conversion on your email marketing campaigns. The more engaged a subscriber is, the more committed they are to your company. They would require a different message than someone who never opens your message. There are three general categories you can use to segment your email list based on engagement. Engaged Subscribers These are people who click on your emails recently and frequently. These people want your emails and will respond to offers. This should be your main focus. Semi-Engaged These are people who do not always open ...

As a full service marketing agency, it’s kind of hard not to notice the marketing efforts utilized by the businesses around us. It’s great to see campaigns being launched and creativity being stretched. So we thought it would be interesting to make this a regular thing and see what companies are doing to help grow their business and increase their exposure. Today’s featured business: Express I received this ad from Express awhile back, and recently decided to check on their website to see how the promotion was going.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that Express.com had updated their website to be ...

The best way to figure out if a marketing campaign is doing well is by looking at the data. Reading up on your clicks and conversions will quickly tell you what works and what doesn't. There are a few things that should stand out to you when looking at your marketing campaign's data. If your campaign suddenly gains or loses traffic Even minor changes to a landing page or website can make a significant difference in your turn around. If you are experience a significant difference, do some testing ot find out why. If subscribers are constantly opening your messages When customers are ...

When it comes to sales and marketing, it is important to effectively use your time and money. Yet, most companies have at least a few practices that are wasting valuable marketing dollars. A good percentage of leads generated by marketing are often left untouched. This happens when marketing campaigns deliver high volume leads that are not genuine prospects or have not been qualified properly. Sales staff will then be discouraged about the leads generated because of their poor quality and difficulty in converting to sale. Here are few of the common “leaks” to avoid. Paying attention to these will prevent your company ...

Many retail sites will find that shoppers will come to visit their site, add items to their shopping cart, but then abandon the cart. According to a report from Experian, 61% of items left in an online shopping cart are not purchased. One way to try to bring back customers to these abandoned shopping carts is through a follow-up e-mail. A follow-up email can help remind the customer of the products they were interested in and could potentially reignite their interest. You can also attempt to include an incentive to encourage people to return to their purchase. Research found that email campaigns ...

As a full service marketing agency, it’s kind of hard not to notice the marketing efforts utilized by the businesses around us. It’s great to see campaigns being launched and creativity being stretched. So we thought it would be interesting to make this a regular thing and see what companies are doing to help grow their business and increase their exposure. Today’s featured business: Office Max I received a letter from Office Max today with a nice greeting that referred to me as a “valued customer.” It’s always nice to know you’re appreciated. Of course the letter, in just under 10 sentences, ...

Small businesses are planning on doing more online marketing in 2010, according to studies from Vistaprint and Ad-ology. Small businesses are looking to increase their marketing plans for social media (14%), online and search advertising (11%). Also, only 38% of small businesses currently have a company website, but 32% of respondents said they would be interested in building a website if they had more time and money to spend on it. In a separate survey, Ad-ology found that 46% of US small businesses did not have a website. With more small businesses becoming interested in online marketing, it is critical to have a website ...

As powerful as the Internet has been in growing businesses, it has also become a digital playground for scam artists. Suspicious websites and too-good-to-be-true offers are sliding money out of consumers’ pockets before they even realize what is happening. Apparently now, we even have to be on guard against the trusted vendors. According to an article on MSNBC, Legit Web sites team up with shady operators , New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating major corporations for their marketing agreements. Some people out there are willing to do anything to scam money out of innocent consumers. It is important to protect ...