Just How Important is Email Marketing for Small Businesses?
With a Return on Investment of a staggering 4,300%, email marketing is about the most effective marketing tool, small business owners and entrepreneurs can leverage.
Have you ever come across those junk emails that do nothing but irritate you, and the next thing you do is to look for the ‘unsubscribe’ link? Well, the senders of those emails hardly have any email marketing strategy in place. Gathering hundreds or thousands of emails, by whichever means, and sending sales pitches while hoping some customers will respond or purchase a product from you is by no means email marketing. If anything, using this method will guarantee you a spectacular failure regarding click-through and conversion rates. It would be best if you were more strategic in your email marketing campaigns. In other words, success in email marketing is not a function of trial and error or chance; it is a result of precision in terms of content and timing.
Here are three tactics you can use in your email marketing campaigns for higher ROI.
Timing is cardinal: Target the senses and consider the time you send your emails
Your customers don’t have all the time in the world to read every email that hits their inbox. It is estimated that the average number of emails that hit the inbox of an average busy person daily is 97. How many of these emails do you think can be read? With that in mind; if you are lucky, your email might be opened.
For an email campaign that is untargeted and/or sent at the wrong time, the most likely place it will end up is in the trash bin.
No matter how big your brand, most consumers will not spend more than a few seconds trying to figure out whether the email before them is worth opening and reading. You only have a small window of opportunity to seduce your subscribers to open your email.
Unfortunately, many marketers and small business owners squander this golden opportunity by sending their emails at the wrong time and using generic texts and images. Your success hinges on reaching and resonating with the recipient at the right time and delivering the right message.
When is the right time to send emails?
The long-standing advice to email marketers about the best time to send email has always been, “Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, between 8.am and 10 a.m.” the logic behind this notion is that people tend to open their inboxes in the mornings. However, that may not always work as much as you would like. As it turns out, there are other unconventional times to unleash your campaigns.
Let us look at some important email marketing trends and stats. This will give us an idea of when the best time to send email would be.
- According to an Experian study, most emails are opened at night with unique open rates averaging 21.7% between 8 p.m. and 11.59 p.m. and 17.6% between 12. a.m and 4 a.m. Moreover, click-through rates during these times are 4.2% and 3.2%, respectively. Return on investment per email is also highest between 8.00 p.m and 11:59 p.m.
- Experian quarterly email marketing benchmark release also showed that emails sent on Monday have the highest ROI even though emails sent on Fridays have a higher click through rates. Ironically, fewer emails are sent on Saturday and Sunday despite the fact that these days experience higher click-through and conversion rates. According to Experian, unique open rates for Saturday and Sunday is 17.8%, which is higher than any other day of the week.
Based on these findings, you should send your emails at unconventional times, such as on weekends and during late hours (between 8: p.m and 11:59 p.m). You can also capture the early birds by sending your emails between (12:00 a.m and 5: a.m).
While this is not a blanket ban on conventional email sending time, it would be a brilliant strategy to counter the competition and stand out from the crowd.
In other words, try not to send your email campaigns when most others are sending.
Mjrvisuals can help you increase your reach out of that content through our expertise. We run the gambit of visual imagination, including video production, digital marketing, video editing, print design, advertising, graphic design, graphic animation, motion graphic and media design.
We believe everyone has a story; the question is; who is telling yours?
How Video Testimonials Can Powerfully Boost Your Sales
Click the image above to see an example.
Video testimonials are one of the most powerful and under-utilized marketing techniques available to a business. If you aren’t using video testimonials, you’re losing out on the ability to upsell customers, acquire new business, and convert visitors who come to your website.
Why Video Testimonials Are Important for Your Business:
Risk Reduction:
A video testimonial for your product or service reduces the risk in the mind of the consumer. I believe that risk reduction is the purpose of all online reviews. Think about buying anything on Amazon. Would you be more likely to purchase a product with three positive reviews, or three hundred positive reviews? Obviously, the more reviewed one, because this makes the purchase less risky in the eyes of the customer. Other people have bought and used the product; therefore you feel more secure that you’re making the right purchase decision.
If you’re in the business of selling high-value products or services, video testimonials are extremely valuable as there is a more significant financial or reputational investment involved in these purchasing decisions.
Upsell Customers to More Expensive Products / Services:
Video testimonials are also a valuable sales aid. If your landing pages present a video of satisfied customers, you’re likely to enjoy more engagement from visitors than simple plain text outlining your offerings. In a study of 1,000 U.S. consumers (who had bought products online in the previous year), the top factor influencing purchases of a higher-priced option was better reviews.
Generating Testimonials: Existing Customers
E-mailing existing customers is a powerful method for generating high-quality video content. If you have a good working relationship with your customers, they will often be willing to provide words of praise or recommendation through a simple interview format. If you interact with your clients regularly, I would recommend using a videographer to professionally edit and capture your video as a strong marketing tool.
My advice is to ask the questions that your customers would want to know as someone new to what you offer. For example, certain questions to ask your customers could be:
- “Why did you initially use product X/ service X.”
- “If you had one thing to say about product X / service x, what would it be?”
Make the questions simple, relatable to your target market, and relevant to what you’re selling. Through some solid questions, you can record the answers from your interviewees and organize the responses into a winning video testimonial.
Video testimonials are a powerful way of minimizing risk for the consumer and upselling your product. If your clients are happy with your products or services, they will be highly likely to agree to a short video testimonial. A simple interview format where you ask questions that would be highly relevant to a new customer is best. Once this is captured, it’s possible to edit it into a polished, high-quality video that acts as a sales aid for any visitors to your website or viewers on social.
MjrVisuals can help through our expertise. We run the gambit of visual imagination, including video production, digital marketing, video editing, print design, advertising, graphic design, graphic animation, motion graphic and media design.
We believe everyone has a story; the question is, who is telling yours?
Why do you need online reviews?
Online reviews are you for them or against them?
I don’t know about you, but when I’m looking to purchase anything, I tend to always look at reviews first. It’s gotten so bad that I sometimes filter my search results with only products or services that have a five-star rating. And the funny thing is, I think I’m not the only person who does this.
Do you do it as well?
Online reviews have an uncanny ability to skyrocket a company’s sales, and at the same time, they have the ability to decline a company’s sales.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to monitor the reviews you have, get customers to leave positive ones, and promote the best ones on your website, your social media profiles, and on your business listings. Whether you’re just now starting to get reviews or you have reviews already, here are a few tips to get ahold of and leverage your reputation online.
Your website should at least have a testimonials page, and that’s if you sell a service; if you are selling products, each product should have a review section or at least a place where your customers can leave a review, and your potential customers can see one. Why, you ask? Leaving the option for past clients to leave a review shows trust, trust in your service, and a belief in your product. So much so that you have no worries in entrusting your online reputation to your past clients.
Everything is connected if you search for your name online the first five things will probably be your Google page, your business Facebook page, your Google local page, then your homepage, and then some random page that you do not know where it came from, but it has items from your site and just like the other four will show multiple reviews about you, your product and/or your service.
Reviews matter.
Now don’t think for a minute that one wrong post or tweet can’t hurt you; it may not be a review, but everybody sees everything, and everything plays to your online reputation, which reflects on your brand.
Monitoring your social media profiles to respond to customers is just as important as responding to bad reviews. Gone are the days where your online reputation was forgettable and didn’t affect your sales. Be sure to monitor and review your online presence to achieve the reputation you deserve.
Along with online marketing tips and education, MjrVisuals is a full-service video production company based in Washington, D.C.
Emotional Branding and Building a Lasting Customer Base in 2020
Emotional branding is defined as the successful attachment of a specific emotion to a brand.
At one of the Business Marketing Association (BMA) conferences in Chicago, Jay Baer asked a room full of roughly 1,000 B2B marketers, “Are you more interesting than my wife?”
Can you think of the people you have had an emotional connection within your life?
How did they impact your life?
Now think about brands and see the common threads among them.
It is true for brands as it is for people: to breakthrough marketing, businesses need to be more interesting and relevant at the moment.
Brands need to connect with people in the way a close friend would—through emotion—to build, long-lasting, and quality relationships. There are enormous opportunities for companies to take advantage of emotional branding.
According to one research, smell is powerful when it comes to persuading someone to buy a product. Brick and mortar locations using certain scents in their stores have been found to have a 30% increase in sales.
A study by University of Wollongong and Murdoch University in 2012, emotional branding is becoming used globally. According to Dr Steve Bellman of Murdoch University’s Audience Labs, marketers are tapping into customer’s feelings to market their brands. Another study shows men who show love for their brand beer purchase 38% more beer than the average.
Therefore, emotional branding can lead to substantially more sales without companies having to rely on discounts and promotions. On the flip side, however, creating that emotional connection can be a difficult task.
How brands can connect emotionally
- By telling a story that inspires an emotional connection: according to Beth Comstock, General Electric Chief Marketing Officer, you can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything. Every brand has stories to tell.
- Allow your audience to be the real hero: imagine how emotionally connected your brand would be by showcasing how your product has changed lives. Simply give your audience a voice, a platform, and a face to be heard.
- By being authentic: don’t be afraid to embrace your inner geek. Remain who you are and don’t try to be like who you are not. At Bizify, we try to remain true to ourselves. We try to help startups find their feet and we intend to remain true to that mission.
- By embracing the opportunity to surprise and delight: surprising and delighting customers can be an effective marketing strategy. Use social media and mobile to spark moments of happiness in customers and you will be surprised at its effectiveness. Coca-Cola has really perfected this art.
Other Important Branding Tips
Creating an irresistible value proposition
A value proposition is a statement that explains what value you provide to your customers and how you do it uniquely. Establishing a substantive value proposition is critical if you want to stand above the crowd. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs lose out because they fail to articulate a unique value proposition.
Be clear on what your business stands for. What is your promise? How will you put out consistent and passionate messages that attract the right candidate? This will also help you to hire the right people and develop products and services that are aligned with your unique value proposition.
Be careful with launching too many brands
The big problem for many businesses is they think more brands will make them more successful, but they have neither the architecture nor the capacity to manage a multiplicity of brands well. Businesses can increase profits by deleting none-performing brands. Even though revenue may fall in the process, reducing the number of brands will be beneficial in the long run.
Multiband strategies are likely to suffer from diseconomies of scale because of the hidden costs. By letting go of weak, declining, and marginally profitable brands, you will be freeing resources to make your few remaining brands better and more attractive to customers. Thus, killing some brands in your portfolio may sometimes be the best way for your business to serve the customers.
Package your products
The packaging is an important element when it comes to marketing. How you package your products can attract or repel customers. Is your packaging visually attractive through shape, color, design, and does it communicate the right brand ideals? If not, it might be time to revamp the way you package your products.
Create a slogan
Let us consider Apple for example. As they became big, they adopted the tagline “Think Different.” This was a perfect fit for their marketing strategy because a large portion of their customers didn’t want to use PC’s like everybody else. Choose a slogan that is consistent with your brand and fits your market slogan.
Take care of your staff
You need to build your reputation to attract the right team and customers. So treat your team well because they are one of the most influential people in your business. Ex-employees are important for leads and new business. Also, reward them for not only making sales but for being great ambassadors for your business.
Inbound Marketing Ideas You Should Try
Are you just getting started with inbound marketing? Have you been doing inbound marketing for sometimes now? How long do you think it should take before seeing results? Many marketers wonder how much it could cost to regularly generate content, and improve social media outreach. The good news is that there are countless ways you can increase your inbound marketing activities without having to break the bank. In other words, the basics are not out of your reach. From writing your own content to utilizing thousands of available website tools to help you reach your potential customers, here are no-cost inbound marketing ideas you can try.
Create high-quality free content
Publishing high-quality content remains the key to successful inbound marketing. If you want to attract customers to your website, you must publish high quality, valuable content. Content can be in the form of blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, white papers or tweets, among others.
At the very least, dedicate a few minutes of your time to create well-written content that is relevant and useful to your audience. of course if you are unable to produce the content yourself, you can contract a marketing agency or freelance content producers to help you publish the right content that will not only be right for the search engines but also one that your users will love.
Create a loyalty program
You can develop a simple strategic partnership with your prospects through loyalty programs. A good example is B2B referral software known as Advocate Hub. This software allows users to build a loyalty program so that the firm can trigger customer enthusiasm and boost referrals of qualified leads.
Loyalty programs are done by incentivizing partners, customers, and employees so that they become brand ambassadors of your target audience. Incentives can range from discounts to reward for content created, such as guest posts and online reviews and testimonials.
Use social media networks
Social media networks have become the cornerstone of inbound marketing, thanks to their global outreach. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Instagram, can be used to promote and share content, products as well as special offers. Social media also allows you to not only interact with your customers but also create brand loyalty.
Remember to keep track of your social media interactions both on your website and on your social media profiles/fan page.
Lead nurturing
Lead nurturing is the process of ensuring that your prospects are ready to buy before directing them to your sales team. Sometimes your sales department can waste valuable time and resources on leads that are not qualified. Here are some tips on how to ensure successful lead nurturing:
- Ensure the timing is right: do not rush your prospects such that you start bombarding them with your sales emails soon after they hit the subscribe button or like your page. It is important to take your time to bring them closer to wanting to open their wallets
- Constantly and consistently refine your messaging: know the kind of information your prospect wants to hear based on the data you have collected. By ensuring that you keep giving them the right and relevant information, you will be building rapport and trust with your customers.
- What do you want to give them? State what you want to provide them and what they stand to gain from your offer.
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Effective and low-cost marketing tips every marketer should consider
Many marketers have found themselves in a situation where they are spending a lot of money in advertising and marketing but end up wasting their money. According to Forbes, almost 50% of advertising is wasted. That is a lot of money, considering the fact that companies spend billions of dollars to gain customers. So how do you ensure that your marketing efforts are strategic, practical, and low-cost? Here are some tips you need to consider.
Know your market
It is imperative to have a clear understanding of your market if you are to succeed in online marketing. Before you even start spending on marketing, you need to figure out your market. That invariably entails knowing your product very well. Once you know your product and how it can help solve your clients’ needs, it will be easier to identify your target market. Once you can identify your target audience, it easy to design a winning marketing strategy without even having to hire an expensive marketing agency.
Your advertising decisions should be based on research
No one goes into the battlefield without designing a winning plan. The case is no different when it comes to marketing and advertising. It is essential to come up with a well-researched and well-thought-out marketing plan.
The plan you come up with will help you to determine the best and most effective marketing channels to reach your audiences.
Things like demographics, bounce rate, conversion rate, acquisition, and audience should be familiar to you. It is important to know how each marketing channel will contribute to your overall growth if you want to make a difference and reap big from your efforts.
Networking
Did you know that networking is one of the most effective marketing tools you can use without the need to break the bank? Join a local business community and be an active participant. If they like your brand, they will tell their friends, colleagues, and relatives without even your knowledge.
People are your greatest assets. Do not underrate what they can do for you.
Content marketing
One of the most effective forms of marketing is content marketing. It is not only cheap but a very effective way of building relationships among people who are genuinely interested in your products. Serious marketers and small business owners have a blog. When writing your blog (or using video and/or podcast) try to offer genuine information to your audience.
It shouldn’t always be about advertising your product because you don’t want to come across a salesman who is only interested in selling his/her products.
Leverage social networks
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all popular networks that you can take advantage of to market your products and services. They can be a great source of traffic if you share interesting stuff.
By creating and sharing great content, you will grow your audience. However, it would be best if you were patient as it can take years before you build a strong following.
Country Mouse filming Bach
New York City. The past three days I have been filming in New York City. Don’t get me wrong I have filmed here a lot but normally it’s in Manhatten. This trip I filmed in Brooklyn and let it be known I had a different picture of Brooklyn in my mind. Rough, tough, dangerous lol. Instead, I found a hipster, upscale community that I really enjoyed staying in.
Hundreds of restaurants and corner stores each corner had it’s own unique charm and quality. I was filming at studio Stillman and right around the corner was a corner deli, that corner deli was amazing. so amazing in fact that after filming I went back and just interacted with the employees and people who came into the shop, picture the sitcom Cheers and that’s what you have, everybody knew everybody the food was amazing and the conversation was out of this world. I look forward to going back. (I’m filming in June in Manhattan, I will make my way back there).
I have gotten into a routine of video, and documentaries. It was great to be able to film BACH, multiple days of great music and creativity is why you do this type of thing. If you ever have time play some back and close your eyes, relax and enjoy.
How to film Bach: 4 cameras, a slider, a gimbal, an H6zoom, 2, shotgun mics, 1 lav mic, 2 instrument mics, 8 LEDs and four spot lights…..and one monitor for the client