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5 Steps to Successful E-Mail Marketing

Jul 24

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Here are 5 steps that will help you with your chiropractic e-mail marketing.

Originally posted in Small Business Trends

via Small Business Trends by Eric Groves on 7/22/10

2010 Can Be Your Year of Success â€” If You Plan For It Now Many small business owners and marketers understand the benefits of using e-mail marketing and online surveys to develop relationships with their customers. Yet, a surprising number of businesses send e-mail communications without thinking about their long-term goals. Take some time to think about your customer communications strategy. The upfront planning you do now can have an enormous impact on your overall success in the long term. Below are five steps to get you started creating an effective e-mail communications plan.

1. Consider your image

What words do you want your recipients to think of when they receive an e-mail from you? Here are a few: knowledgeable, available, professional, reliable and respectful. Every e-mail you send to a customer, prospect or member puts your brand and message front and center. You are building a brand among your constituents, and your e-mail marketing efforts can go a long way to support it. Let the values and personality traits of your business or organization guide you as you plan and create your marketing communications.

2. Determine what information is most valuable to your readers

How do you know what content is most valuable to your readers? Ask them. An online survey is an easy, affordable, and effective way to find out what your customers are thinking. The results you get back can provide helpful insight into the value of your e-mails, what content is most relevant, how your readers use the content you provide, and much more. Another way to learn what topics are of most interest to readers is to review and analyze your campaign delivery metrics. Look at your open rates and click-throughs to determine which articles generated the most interest, and which subject lines resulted in more opens. You can then identify the most popular topics that will appeal to your subscribers going forward.

3. Get your readers invested

Another consideration in your planning is how to get your customers more invested in your e-mail content. This goes beyond just writing about topics they’ll find interesting. Engage them by making them part of the content. You could add a question and answer section to your newsletters, conduct an online survey focused on content, or simply ask for feedback in every issue. Consider inviting your customers to share their success stories or suggest tips or information for other readers. Giving your audience opportunities to be heard and even seen will make their experience more personal and help you to forge a greater connection with them. And it will help you add fresh, engaging content to your communications.

4. Expand your reach – grow your list

Do you want to find more people who are interested in what you have to offer and to more deeply engage with those with whom you already have a relationship? If so, think about how you will use e-mail marketing to do it. It starts with list growth. Who do you want to add to your list? How will you ask them to join? How will you promote your e-mail communications and engage others in promoting them as well? The answers to these questions will help guide your communications strategy and the tactics you’ll employ. Perhaps you should incorporate an incentive or loyalty program to generate new subscribers and strengthen existing subscriber relationships. Or, you could partner with a like-minded business that offers a complimentary service or product and encourage your customers to sign up for their newsletter and vice versa. You could even conduct an event aimed at your shared customers.

5. Schedule your e-mail communications

Now that you’ve analyzed your reports, surveyed your customers, and figured out what content you want to send, it’s time to sit down with the calendar and plan. Consider upcoming seasons (back-to-school, the winter holidays) and events as e-mail marketing opportunities. Outside of these events, try and identify one unifying topic, component or section of your newsletter that will remain consistent throughout the year. Perhaps, you will include a monthly recipe, tip of the month, or link to a news article that pertains to your audience. Whatever it is, your readers will come to expect it and will be excited to see what’s included when they hear from you. Put all those ideas into the plan and then round it out from there.

Your e-mail marketing plan can serve as your roadmap going forward. By planning your customer communications strategy now, you’ll set benchmarks for what you want to accomplish in the coming months and identify the tools and tactics to help you achieve your goals.

If you want an additional, more thorough planning tool, download Constant Contact’s free Email Marketing Workbook. It includes probing questions and ideas to help you continue to build a winning communications strategy and plan for your business.

From Small Business Trends

5 Steps to Successful E-Mail Marketing

Posted via email from chiromarketing posterous

5 Steps to Successful E-Mail Marketing

Jul 24

Posted by author in Uncategorized | No Comments

5 Steps to Successful E-Mail Marketing

via Small Business Trends by Eric Groves on 7/22/10

Many small business owners and marketers understand the benefits of using e-mail marketing and online surveys to develop relationships with their customers. Yet, a surprising number of businesses send e-mail communications without thinking about their long-term goals. Take some time to think about your customer communications strategy. The upfront planning you do now can have an enormous impact on your overall success in the long term. Below are five steps to get you started creating an effective e-mail communications plan.

1. Consider your image

What words do you want your recipients to think of when they receive an e-mail from you? Here are a few: knowledgeable, available, professional, reliable and respectful. Every e-mail you send to a customer, prospect or member puts your brand and message front and center. You are building a brand among your constituents, and your e-mail marketing efforts can go a long way to support it. Let the values and personality traits of your business or organization guide you as you plan and create your marketing communications.

2. Determine what information is most valuable to your readers

How do you know what content is most valuable to your readers? Ask them. An online survey is an easy, affordable, and effective way to find out what your customers are thinking. The results you get back can provide helpful insight into the value of your e-mails, what content is most relevant, how your readers use the content you provide, and much more. Another way to learn what topics are of most interest to readers is to review and analyze your campaign delivery metrics. Look at your open rates and click-throughs to determine which articles generated the most interest, and which subject lines resulted in more opens. You can then identify the most popular topics that will appeal to your subscribers going forward.

3. Get your readers invested

Another consideration in your planning is how to get your customers more invested in your e-mail content. This goes beyond just writing about topics they’ll find interesting. Engage them by making them part of the content. You could add a question and answer section to your newsletters, conduct an online survey focused on content, or simply ask for feedback in every issue. Consider inviting your customers to share their success stories or suggest tips or information for other readers. Giving your audience opportunities to be heard and even seen will make their experience more personal and help you to forge a greater connection with them. And it will help you add fresh, engaging content to your communications.

4. Expand your reach – grow your list

Do you want to find more people who are interested in what you have to offer and to more deeply engage with those with whom you already have a relationship? If so, think about how you will use e-mail marketing to do it. It starts with list growth. Who do you want to add to your list? How will you ask them to join? How will you promote your e-mail communications and engage others in promoting them as well? The answers to these questions will help guide your communications strategy and the tactics you’ll employ. Perhaps you should incorporate an incentive or loyalty program to generate new subscribers and strengthen existing subscriber relationships. Or, you could partner with a like-minded business that offers a complimentary service or product and encourage your customers to sign up for their newsletter and vice versa. You could even conduct an event aimed at your shared customers.

5. Schedule your e-mail communications

Now that you’ve analyzed your reports, surveyed your customers, and figured out what content you want to send, it’s time to sit down with the calendar and plan. Consider upcoming seasons (back-to-school, the winter holidays) and events as e-mail marketing opportunities. Outside of these events, try and identify one unifying topic, component or section of your newsletter that will remain consistent throughout the year. Perhaps, you will include a monthly recipe, tip of the month, or link to a news article that pertains to your audience. Whatever it is, your readers will come to expect it and will be excited to see what’s included when they hear from you. Put all those ideas into the plan and then round it out from there.

Your e-mail marketing plan can serve as your roadmap going forward. By planning your customer communications strategy now, you’ll set benchmarks for what you want to accomplish in the coming months and identify the tools and tactics to help you achieve your goals.

If you want an additional, more thorough planning tool, download Constant Contact’s free Email Marketing Workbook. It includes probing questions and ideas to help you continue to build a winning communications strategy and plan for your business.

From Small Business Trends
5 Steps to Successful E-Mail Marketing

Posted via email from chiromarketing posterous

Does SEO Matter in the Mobile Age?

Jul 22

Posted by author in Uncategorized | No Comments

Great post about making sure your chiropractic marketing and websites are optimized for mobile search. Do this.

http://www.cikmarketing.ca

Is your business using search engine optimization to reach potential customers searching for information online? Of course. But is your search engine optimization designed to work on mobile phones? Reports from CTIA show that more than 90% of US households access the internet via mobile networks; compare that to an estimated 74% of at home Internet users (according to Nielson). A shift is happening has happened online – is your business aware of the change?

Onsite Optimization Practices for Mobile Marketing

If you’re new to the world of mobile optimization, don’t worry – here are a few tips to help get you started:

1. Remember to use valid code.

If you haven’t made the switch to XHTML, there’s no better time than the present. Many website designers don’t consider using valid code as a best practice; unfortunately, this will be to their detriment when they start coding mobile layouts. Mobile search engines may have trouble digesting invalid code.

2. Follow accessibility practices closely.

Accessibility helps ensure that your content can be read by all mobile platforms, including mobile search engines. Unfamiliar with accessibility? Check out the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiatives for pointers and tips.

3. Follow traditional SEO best practices.

Web companies used to spend time crafting mobile specific domains (.mobi). These sites were equipped with lighter content and faster load times to help accommodate early mobile browsers. Of course, much has changed since those early mobile devices. Mobile browsers are far more “normalized” nowadays, which means they function very similar to Internet browsers. Mobile search optimization standards are now much closer to standard seo practices, so follow the rules. Need a refresher on optimizing techniques? Check out this post for tips.

Make Sure Your Mobile Site is Indexed

There’s long been a misconception regarding how exactly small business owners can get their mobile websites indexed by major search engines. Most people think that just because your regular site is indexed in the traditional Google algorithm, your mobile site with automatically find its way into mobile search results. To better the chances of your mobile website being indexed, don’t forget to create a mobile sitemap (instructions are posted on Google’s Webmaster Central). You can then submit this directly to Google from your Webmaster’s Tool account. Yahoo also has a submission form for mobile websites to help improve your chances of being found.

Make Connecting Easy on a Mobile Site

Blackberry, iPhone, and Android operating systems have one major thing in common – they all allow users to call phone numbers that are listed on mobile-friendly websites. Talk about convenient! Not sure if the phone numbers listed on your mobile website are “click to call?” Check to see how they’re rendering on your smartphone – if the number is “clickable” it should be underlined in your browser.

Don’t Forget About Social Networking

Smartphones have taken social networking to a whole new level. In fact, the vast majority of people prefer to poll their social network when in search of information rather than consult a search engine or phone book. If your small business isn’t present on these networks you’re missing out on a major pool of potential customers. Facebook and Twitter applications are practically standard on cellphones these days, so remember to spend time updating your fans and followers about store promotions and upcoming events. You never know who could be reading your status updates!

Posted via email from chiromarketing posterous

Chiropractic Internet Marketing Strategy: Do it Yourself or Hire a Company?

May 10

Posted by admin in Uncategorized, chiropractic internet marketing, chiropractic marketing, chiropractic websites | No Comments

Here’s an interesting question for you to consider: Do you want to keep your internet marketing in-house or do you want to hire a professional? There are pros and cons to both, and the answer lies in your particular situation. Let’s check out the advantages and disadvantages of both.

Advantages of in-house chiropractic internet marketing

There is a lower monthly cost involved in using someone already employed by you.
The staff knows your practice intimately. Your staff has a good understanding of your clinic’s particular services and, therefore, is able to describe your specialties easier than those who don’t know the specifics of your particular practice.
You can communicate anytime. Being in-house it is easier to set up times to have meetings or just to chat about situations on the fly.

Disadvantages of in-house chiropractic website marketing

The staff may not be fully aware of what SEO (search engine optimization) is, let alone how to accomplish it. In that case, a lot of education and training will be needed to make sure SEO gets done right.
The staff may be overworked. Sometimes the time it takes to do SEO can be underestimated. It is an ongoing process that can actually be a full-time job. If a marketing manager has been told to do SEO as well as his or her full time job, obviously that person will be overworked and feel overwhelmed.
Attention needs to be paid to detail. This goes together with Point #2. If the staff is overworked, they have no time to check out search engine news and keep up-to-date on how the search engines have changed the game each week and what needs to be done to implement those changes to keep your clinic internet presence up in the rankings.

Advantages of using an outside professional

chiropractic marketing companies are specialists in the field. They have experience in working on numerous clinics and their websites and optimizing them for SEO. They know, first hand, what works effectively and what doesn’t.
There is a dedicated team at the company who will be working on your site and can give it the attention it requires.
The company has a specific plan and won’t be just jumping around, going from short term tactic to short term tactic with no organized strategy and no clear way to reach your desired goals. In other words, they have an “integrated” internet marketing strategy.

Disadvantages of a chiropractic internet marketing company

Let’s face it, it can get expensive, but costs vary widely from company to company. Some companies out there are charging $600-$700 a month for their services. It is definitely worth your while to shop around and research before you buy.
There is usually a commitment. Most chiropractic internet marketing companies will want you to sign up for at least six months to a year.
Account management can be a problem. With high turnover rates at many companies, especially the big ones, there may be a chance that you’ll get handed from account manager to account manager just when you were building a relationship of trust. You may have to start over again, maybe even have to redesign and reiterate your strategy with the new manager.

Now that you’ve taken a moment to look at the pros and cons of both keeping your internet marketing in-house or hiring a professional, the solution to SEO and your internet marketing strategy will depend on the size of your practice, the time and staffing you can devote to it, and your overall long-term goals.

Now, of course, we are an internet marketing company that specializes in helping chiropractors with their internet presence. So, I will admit that I am a bit biased on the side of your hiring an expert to do it right. If you are thinking of hiring a company to develop and implement your internet marketing strategy, it is tremendously important for you to hire one that specializes in chiropractic clinics. Why? Because we understand the chiropractic profession intimately. Therefore, in the long run it will save you both time and money not having to explain what chiropractic is about to some general seo company. There are several of us out there.

If you are going to go with an outside company, be sure to read the fine print. Look at the bottom of their page for a disclaimer. If they have one, read about their “typical” results. You don’t want to be fooled by outrageous claims even though such hype can be enticing. Remember, your internet marketing strategy is just one stream of new patient leads. Even though chiropractic internet marketing is fast becoming a great source for new patient leads, and even though internet marketing gets more important with every passing day, and even though it is a crucial area in which to generate new patient leads, it is still not the only source of marketing you will need to succeed in your practice.

Whether you choose to keep your internet marketing in-house or to hire a professional, you want to be sure that the time and money you spend on SEO gets you where you want to go. A member of your staff that does your internet marketing for “free,” while squeezing those efforts in-between other tasks, may “cost” you in the long run. A professional whose sole focus is internet marketing, won’t lose sight of your goals. Internet marketing is essential to your practice, so choose your chiropractic internet path wisely.

Technorati Tags: chiropractic internet marketing, chiropractic marketing, seo

Tags: chiropractic internet marketing, chiropractic marketing, seo

10 Reasons not to Ignore Your Blog for Facebook

Apr 28

Posted by admin in chiropractic internet marketing, chiropractic marketing | No Comments

This is a great post that I found in Small Business Trends. While I feel it is important for chiropractors to market themselves with social media, to make that your sole chiropractic internet marketing strategy is not a good idea. I hope you enjoy.

via Small Business Trends by Lisa Barone on 4/28/10

Brace yourself: Facebook is trying to take over the world. Or, if not the world, at least the entire Internet. With Facebook partnering up with popular sites like Yelp, many SMB owners may feel as if their load got lighter. I mean, why waste time worrying about your building your blog or your own site when you can grow your Facebook presence instead? If Facebook’s opening up the doors so that people can take you with them, you don’t have to worry about anything else anymore, right?

Wrong!

It doesn’t matter how hot Facebook or any of the other social media sites are looking right now. You still need to be focused on using your blog to create your own authority and brand. Want to know why?

Here are ten reasons.

You Don’t Own Facebook: Today, Facebook stands as a great marketing channel for small business owners looking to extend relationships or bridge social capital via Payvment . Sounds great today, but remember that a few years ago MySpace and Friendster were the hot social networks of the moment. You don’t see too many marketers making these sites part of their social strategies today. Why? Because users move on. Because these networks can be bought and sold. They shift focus. They stop lending themselves to social marketing. While it’s never smart to put all your eggs in one basket, it’s especially unwise to do it when you don’t even own the basket. Make sure you’re diversifying your marketing and using the channels you most control.
Not Everyone Is Happy With Facebook: Google engineers are deleting their accounts (with obvious motive), users are angered by the new invasive approach, and Facebook has even caught the eye of four US Senators now asking them to take a step back. With regulators being asked to step in and force changes upon Facebook, no one knows what’s going to still be around tomorrow.
Blogging Builds Your House, Not Theirs: The content you create and post to your blog acts to build your site and your authority. That’s where your focus should be – on building a community on the site that you own. Facebook and the other social media sites help you build satellite communities, which are great, but the goal is always to direct people back to your site to get them to convert. Continually posting great content builds your network and your brand. You don’t want to build a house for someone else (say, Facebook), while yours in jeopardy of falling down.
Creates A Site Reservoir For Common Questions: By blogging about common product or service questions, it gives you a permanent place on your site to direct people for information. That means less phone calls into your customer service center and less frustration from customers who now have a place to go to get help to common concerns. Putting that content on your site means it becomes part of your archives, no one else’s.
Additional Search Engine Rankings: Keeping focus on your blog means that you can write content specifically intended to gain rankings for keywords you’re not strongly targeted on your main site. It also means that your content and brand will continue to show up for targeted searches and that you’ll gain authority and visibility through those rankings. You may be able to get your Facebook profile to rank for your company name, but through your blog you can get specific pieces of content to rank for high conversion searches.
Credibility: Blogging breeds thought leadership when your become known as the “Go To” source for a specific topic. Constantly sharing thoughts, insight, and information helps you show your own expertise on a particular subject… expertise that is then associated with your blog and Web site. Posting information to Facebook segregates what you’re putting out to a walled garden and makes it harder for people to find it and associate it with your company. On Facebook, you only build credibility with the people who already know about you.
Build Links: When you say something smart on your blog, people are going to link to your site and talk about you. The links then help to increase the overall authority of your site, earn you higher rankings and help other people find out about your site or blog. When you say something smart on Facebook, people are going to Like the status update. And then move on. Not quite the same effect.
Centralized Content: Blogs allow you to utilized multiple types of content in one place. You can use images, video, audio, and graphics at whim without having to worry about whether or not Facebook will allow you to properly upload the content. This helps to present customers with a much more unified experiences and allows you to control your own marketing messages. You don’t get that level of control using a third-party site like Facebook or Twitter.
Gives you something to link to: By creating content on your blog, it gives you something to link people to when you’re engaging on outside social networks. If you’re producing all your content on Twitter, then your Twitter accounts in the only tool in your bag. By strengthening your own site, you have a content-rich place to send people looking for information, either about your or the services that you offer.
Better Conversion Tracking: While Facebook does allow some ability to track what people are doing and interacting with on your back, your blog gives you the greatest ability to track action and conversion potential. You’re ability to track people through your site, the types of content they most interact with, whether or not they’re clicking through to interior pages, etc. The more you know how someone is interacting with your site, the better you can customize their experience. Remember, the goal behind social media isn’t to be in social media. The goal is to increase conversions.

Though it can be attractive as a SMB owner to let social sites like Facebook or Twitter become your dominant Web presence, it comes with a high cost. The less time you spend building content and authority for your site, the more you make yourself dependent on tools that may one day fall away. And if Facebook or Twitter went away tomorrow – would you have enough seeds planted to attract your audience? Use sites like Facebook to build your audience and promote your brand, but your blog should still be the cornerstone of your social activity.

Technorati Tags: blog, chiropractic internet marketing, Facebook,

Tags: blog, chiropractic internet marketing, Facebook,

Chiropractic Marketing with Killer Websites and Fantastic Pricing

Apr 18

Posted by admin in chiropractic internet marketing | No Comments

You have got to check out our latest awesome offer to the chiropractic profession. Now you can get a beautiful website and show up on the first page of Google so you actually get some traffic to your site for as low as $97 a month, with no upfront fees! It doesn’t get any sweeter then this folks. Head on over to our home page and check it out for yourself.

Technorati Tags: chiropractic internet marketing, chiropractic websites

Tags: chiropractic internet marketing, chiropractic websites

Yelp's Major Site Changes.

Apr 6

Posted by author in chiropractic marketing | No Comments

Great article on the latest news about Yelp.

Yelp Answers Extortion Claims With Major Site Changes

via Small Business Trends by Lisa Barone on 4/6/10

The big news you need to know today is this: In the face of February’s class action lawsuit and claims of extortion, Yelp is rolling out a number of major site changes to increase transparency and remove any question of impropriety once and for all.

What’s changed and what does it mean for small business owners and advertisers? Here’s a rundown.

Users will now be able to see ALL reviews left for a business

The first change to Yelp will allow users to see every review that has been on a business profile, including reviews that had been previously filtered out. Yelp’s review filter has come under attack lately as users began to wonder why certain reviews would “disappear” over time. A few weeks ago Yelp released a video on its review filter, explaining that sometimes legitimate reviews that were either overly negative or overly positive were filtered out to create a median effect. This meant that a user was never able to see every legitimate review that was left for a business. With this morning’s change, now they can.

Yelp hopes the increased transparency will help users to see that the review site is not filtering out reviews to favor advertisers and that all businesses are being treated fairly. According to Mashable, the additional reviews will be made available through a new link on all business pages and will show every review left for a business. Of course, be careful what you wish for. With Yelp now showing ALL reviews, it means everything that is left about your business, whether Yelp feels it’s legitimate or not, will be available for public consumption. For example, the nasty review your competitor left you? It’s now viewable. On the upside, all positive reviews that Yelp had previously filtered for being “too positive” will also be seen.

Yelp will discontinue Favorite Reviews

Much of the controversy around Yelp came from the Favorite Reviews feature which allowed advertisers to select the first review that showed up on the page. There had long been some confusion (and rumor) that advertisers were given preferential treatment and could also have negative reviews removed for the right price or control what appeared on their page. Yelp has strongly denied these allegations and has now removed the feature to put an end to any further speculation.

From the NYT article:

“Despite our best efforts, there’s still obviously confusion out there about what you can buy on Yelp, so we’re making a change to simply drop this feature,” [Yelp’s co-founder and chief executive, Jeremy Stoppleman]said.

According to reports, the Favorite Reviews feature will soon be replaced by one that allows business owners to post videos to their Yelp page, which seems pretty cool.

Overall, this is a big move for Yelp. As I mentioned, it wasn’t more than a few weeks ago that Yelp released a video explaining the workings of its review filter. Now, users are getting an even larger peak behind the curtain. While I applaud the increased transparency of Yelp here, I wonder if they’re not about to shoot themselves in the foot. By allowing users to figure out which reviews have been filtered out, you start to show your cards a bit in terms of how your algorithm works, thereby making it easier for those with bad intentions to game it. Obviously, the entire Yelp site is based on the integrity of reviews, which is why Yelp is making these changes to begin with. The more public your filter becomes, the more of your ’secret sauce’ you’re letting out.

From a user standpoint, however, the changes will hopefully shed a bit of light on how Yelp works and show Yelp to be an unbiased source of reviews. As search becomes more local and with services like FourSquare nipping at Yelp’s heels, the review site needs to re-emphasis its commitment to the small business community. And these changes focus on doing exactly that.

Posted via email from chiromarketing posterous

Onsite Optimization Practices for Mobile Marketing

1. Remember to use valid code.

2. Follow accessibility practices closely.

3. Follow traditional SEO best practices.

Make Sure Your Mobile Site is Indexed

Make Connecting Easy on a Mobile Site

Don’t Forget About Social Networking

Automated Social Media Introduction

Automated Social Media Part 1

Users will now be able to see ALL reviews left for a business

Yelp will discontinue Favorite Reviews

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