jamesburchill's posterous - digital freedom and automatic profits

October 27, 2009

The Benefits of Sharing Email Content with Social Media Sites

SUMMARY: “Social sharing” allows email recipients to share email content on popular social networks and other social media sites. Combining targeted email with the reach of social media opens a wealth of new opportunities for marketers.

Do You Agree or Disagree that Social Sharing...

Social sharing is a rapidly emerging email tactic. As this chart shows, about 80% of marketers agree that social sharing "extends the reach of email content to new markets," and "increases brand reputation and awareness." Approximately half of marketers surveyed agree that social sharing accelerates the growth of email lists and increases the ROI of email programs.

The missed opportunity here is the use of social sharing to generate more qualified leads. As a new medium, there are still misconceptions about social media’s value, as well as the value of sharing email content through social media.

As this chart shows, only 31% of marketers consider social sharing an effective lead generation tactic.

But when you combine targeted email with the scope of social media, new lead generation opportunities become available to marketers.

What type of email content works best to engage prospects in the socialsphere? One marketer told us, "As with any messaging intended to build a relationship with prospective customers, the email content shared on social media sites must not be sales-oriented.

"We began sharing content that was heavily geared toward promotion. This was not effective in the social environment. We now concentrate on educational and informational topics that our prospects and customers will find interesting rather than on aggressive selling information. This is building a preference for our brand within the social communities we are reaching."

*Source: MarketingSherpa

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October 27, 2009

Almost As Good As A Sandwich Board

According to a new survey commissioned by 1020 Placecast and conducted by Harris Interactive, American consumers are receptive to opt-in mobile marketing messages from brick-and-mortar businesses. 42% of 18 to 34 year old cell phone owners and 33% of 35 to 44 year olds are at least somewhat interested in receiving alerts about sales on their cell phones from their favorite establishments.

Men are more interested than women:

51% of men ages 18 to 34, and 34% of women of the same age range who own cell phones, are at least somewhat interested in receiving opt-in shopping alerts on their cell phones.

Only 1% cell phone owners currently receive alerts about sales at their favorite establishments on their phones, yet 26% would be at least somewhat interested in receiving such alerts, assuming they were permission-based. Food, entertainment and consumer products top the list of categories

Of those interested in receiving alerts, 53% would be at least somewhat interested in being notified about restaurant specials around them.In addition, about 2-in-5 of these adults would like to receive alerts about sales for:

Movie/event tickets (43%)
Weather information (39%)
Clearance or liquidation sales (37%)

About another 3-in-10 of these adults would want to be alerted about:

Pizza (31%) Clothes (30%)
Fast food (27%)

About one quarter would want to be notified about:

Electronics (25%)
Music (24%)
Happy hour specials or bar and night club offers (21%)

The survey found that about 9-in-10 U.S. adults have made an impulse purchase when they were out shopping in a store based on a sale or a special near where they were.

22% of adults owning cell phones make this type of impulse purchase at least once per week or more often
Among women with cell phones ages 18 to 44, 27% report making at least one impulse purchase a week
Among men 18 - 34, this number rises to 31%

Among cell phone owners in households with children under 18, 37% are at least somewhat interested in receiving opt-in alerts on their mobile phones. This number rises to 44% in households with children under age 6.

According to Kathryn Koegel of Primary Impact Research, "Many American consumers have their mobile devices with them all day long, including when they are shopping... reaching a receptive audience... presents a big opportunity to influence impulse purchases... "

*Source: MediaPost.com

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October 22, 2009

[Video] The 5th Dimensional Business Alignment Process

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October 14, 2009

Flock This!

The Inversion Effect:

People Will Want Something 100 Times More If They Think They Are Not Supposed To Have It (A carefully crafted warning message telling people DON'T BUY THIS BOOK will triple its sales - A person can give others a friendly warning why they should stay away from a certain book and at the same time drop a couple subtle hints of what the knowledge could allow the reader to do or achieve and that will also triple the sales of the book) Marketers Who Tell People Not To Go Into The Money Making Info Business Actually Cause The Exact Opposite Reaction In Most Folks.

*This tip is part of the Herd Mentality Series of Marketing Advice.

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October 6, 2009

Social Media is Challenging Email

Social Media is starting to kick email's butt as a force-du-jour marketing channel. This chart shows 7 out of 10 people believe SM will compete more for peoples time and attention than ever before.

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September 30, 2009

Social Media Automation

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September 29, 2009

The Art and Science of Keyword Research

SUMMARY: Finding the most effective keywords to use in search engine marketing is part art and part science, and has been a chief concern of marketers since the practice began. It’s imperative that marketers know and use the same language used by the market they wish to attract, and emphasize those words that lead to the highest conversion levels.

Marketers Who Find the Keyword Research Tactic “Highly-Effective”

Whether writing keyword-rich press-release copy that is likely to find its way into relevant organic search results, choosing long lists of keywords for PPC campaigns, or simply tweaking website copy, marketers need to identify, understand and speak the same language used by their target audience, and emphasize words that lead to the highest conversion levels.

According to surveyed marketers, site log files are rich sources of data for copywriters and keyword list makers to mine. Interestingly, marketers with bigger monthly PPC budgets are more likely to rate nearly all tactics as "highly effective" than their counterparts with smaller budgets. We can infer that expertise may play a role in how successfully a search marketer employs the tools at his or her disposal.

While 31% of big-budget search marketers find long keyword strings to be "highly effective" when looking for high-performance PPC keywords, we also learned that longer keyword strings tend to convert at a slightly higher rate than short strings.

But how long is "long"? 95% of all searches are six words or less. "Long", it seems, can safely be defined as four to six words. While longer keyword phrases may convert much better than shorter keyword phrases, the volume of searches for phrases over six words may be so small that it’s not worth the effort.

*Source: Marketing Sherpa

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September 21, 2009

JamesBurchill.com is Even More Secure

Just a quick heads-up, this website is now secured with a GoDaddy.com Web Server Certificate.

Transactions on the site are protected with up to 256-bit Secure Sockets Layer encryption. We always took privacy and security seriously, now we've taken it to another level.

You can access the secure site at https://jamesburchill.com

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September 19, 2009

7 Things You Must Know About Your Prospect

In order to sell to your prospect's emotions you should know something about them. So here's a list of 7 things you absolutely MUST know about your prospects.

1. Age - Everything you say and write, including slang, allusions, word difficulty, and topics should be adjusted to meet age appropriateness.

2. Gender - Despite the dual roles men and women tend to fill, most individuals can be segmented (and sold to) based on gender-specific interests or needs.

3. Location - Values and culture tend to vary based on demographics. Having a clear understanding of regional difference will improve your targeted messages.

4. Education Level - Similar to age appropriateness, education levels should determine how you address your prospects and what benefits they will find in your product or service.

5. Income - The needs and wants from one social class to another should be a guide to the types of products and services you should be selling them.

6. Marital Status - The values, needs, and desires of married persons greatly differ from those that are single. Marketing family messages to single persons (and vice versa) can lose the deal for you.

7. What Keeps Them Up At Night - This is the most important one. You've got to know your prospect's fears, worries, concerns, excitements, hopes and dreams. When you know the conversation inside your prospect's head, you can enter it, speak to it, and build a relationship that leads to a customer.

Source: Clate Mask, CEO Infusionsoft

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September 15, 2009

Bing Is In

Bing Search increases 22% in August

"Total searches on MSN/Windows Live/Bing Search increased 22.1 percent month-over-month in August, making it the fastest growing search provider among the top 10. Share of searches for Bing increased from 9.0 percent in July to 10.7 percent in August. Google Search continued as the No. 1 search provider, with 7.0 billion searches and a 64.6 percent search share."

*Source Axandra

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